Three Ingredients in a Recipe for Gratitude by Lisa Kelly in Reflections

So many times a day we say “thank you” out of nothing more than common courtesy at best or, at worst, out of habit, with no realization that we even said it. Thus, saying “thank you” is actually the least impactful part of being grateful. My spiritual director will often instruct me to “sit with a feeling”— not judge it or rationalize it, but instead just “sit with it” so I really feel it. What does real gratitude feel like? Here are the ingredients I can almost taste when I take the time to feel truly grateful.

First we taste two cups of humility. True gratitude instantly puts me in a place of realizing I am dependent on another. Whatever I have just received—whether it was a cup of coffee, a borrowed pen, or the deepest desire of my heart—someone beyond myself has just positively impacted me and made my life better.
A western cultural mentality promotes the thinking that we somehow deserve whatever we have received, especially if money was involved. There is even a prosperity theology out there that asserts wealth is a blessing God bestows on some and not others. Don’t fall for it. God’s blessing comes in the way of life and love and is freely given to all. If you think money can take the place of your dependence on others, you are cheating yourself out of recognizing our interdependence and experiencing the humility true gratitude brings.

The second cup of humility in my recipe for gratitude comes from the Ignatian mantra that God is in all things. The enormity of God’s presence is easy to feel standing next to the vast ocean or staring up at a sky with a million stars, but even when I am heartbroken or scared, on the craziest of days or just standing in line at the department store, the moment that I reach for sincere gratitude I am bowled over by the enormity of God’s love and graciousness in my life.
How is it that with all my faults and failings, one mere creature of the billions on this earth, the God of all, the Creator of all, longs for me? How is it I have come to have this moment? True gratitude affirms the paradox of our smallness and God’s grandeur. Sitting in gratitude I can also taste a cup of relief. If you say “thank you,” but you don’t feel just a bit of weight lift off your shoulders or anxiety dissipate from your mind, chances are you aren’t really experiencing gratitude. 

Naming the concern or need that has just been alleviated

 instantly stirs the gratitude pot.

Finally, experiencing true gratitude always brings a taste of hope. Receiving is empowering. It allows you to take that next step down the road, to look to the future, and to keep going even when the road is hard. A barrier has been removed or a reinforcement has arrived, even if only in the form of smile from another.
Sitting in gratitude to experience this humility, relief, and hope need not take an extended hour of meditation. 

In mere seconds of awareness I can feel these ingredients all wash over me. 

St. Ignatius encourages us to begin and end all things with gratitude.

Treasured Sorrow 

by Becky Eldredge in Spirituality

A week ago, a friend and I were at lunch, discussing the recent death of his family member, who was also a very dear friend of mine. The conversation turned to how, despite his grief, he could name many gifts of the experience of walking with his loved one during her battle with cancer. He named how the experience changed him, how many people he met during the process, and how it made him more compassionate towards others’ suffering.
As I listened, I began recalling experiences in my life that echoed with both struggle and graces. One of my teachers in my spiritual direction program, Bob Fitzgerald, called these moments of our lives “treasured sorrows.”

What Is a Treasured Sorrow? It is a life experience where there was both grief and joy. We faced pain, challenges, hurt, loss, or grief. Yet, as we look back, we treasure the experience we went through because of what we learned and who we became in the process. While the experience itself was a beast to live through, we know that the growth we experienced, the reliance on God we now have, and the new awareness we have about ourselves would not be there without this period of life.

Reflecting on Our Treasured Sorrows There are a handful of events in my life I can now name as treasured sorrows. While I would rather not re-live these moments of loss and pain, I know that these experiences changed me in a profound way, and so I treasure the lessons I learned. I am more aware of what others experience. The utter dependency on God during these times grew strong roots of faith that still strengthen me today.
I cherish the people I met and the relationships that deepened as we walked the experience together. I know the tools of my faith offer support and guidance after leaning on them as I walked the challenging journey.
Our treasured sorrows are our wise teachers. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we can sift through our experiences and name the sorrows and the treasures. Then, like any good Ignatian friend would do, we can offer this experience to God to be transformed and used by God for the good of the Kingdom.

What about you? What in your life do you consider to be a treasured sorrow?

The Gift of the Ordinary

by Lisa Kelly in Reflections

Last week my 84-year-old mother was in the hospital. For days on end doctors tried this and that to stabilize her heart. What struck me was not the desire for some great miracle in which, beyond the capacities of medicine and the doctors, her heart would suddenly be strong again, but instead a desire shared by so many people I talked to in the hospital—to be able to do the most ordinary of things.

The patients wanted to cuddle up and get a good night’s sleep in their own beds, take a shower, cook themselves breakfast, go to the grocery store, and walk the dog. “Oh, that would be heaven,” one patient dreamed. Heaven? When faced with not being able to do these supposedly mundane tasks, they suddenly become the greatest desires of our hearts.
So often people look for miracles as proof of their belief (or hope) that there is a God. It seems the more outrageous or beyond the bounds of science, the more we are apt to believe there is something greater than ourselves at work.
Unfortunately, a faith that is based on the scientifically unexplainable is all too often lost in challenging times when the miracle is debunked or when the prayed-for miracle doesn’t happen.
One of the greatest gifts of practicing Ignatian spirituality is coming to recognize the utterly miraculous gifts in the most ordinary aspects of life. When we get in the habit of regularly asking, “Where is God in all this?” or looking back over the day and identifying,

“Where was I fully present? Where did my heart soar?” we get in the habit of recognizing with gratitude and awe the most seemingly benign things—the smell of the flowers, the laughter shared with a teenager, holding hands with another, and, when we really take the time the taste it, the most delicious pizza ever!
Can you look out your window right now, at this very moment, and identify a miracle? A wonder? A marvel? Can you recognize with every breath the thousands of processes taking place perfectly in sync within your own body? The everyday, completely ordinary act of living is truly a gift. In these often dreary, cold days of winter, when it seems there is nothing special to motivate our faith, in this Ordinary Time of the Church year and life, could it be that we actually are given the greatest gifts of all?