Category: Gratitude - A Cottage by the Sea

Flowers representing completion and perfection

1/1/2025

Yesterday, December 31st, I wrote my last gratitude for 2024: #4252 "Jessie and Priscilla." I could have written 'good health, good sleep, good energy, good weather, but I didn't. I wrote the names of two good friends who had been in touch with me on my birthday, one through a letter, the other with flowers, and both by phone calls. Each of these friends are close to 30 years younger than I. I was a teacher to one, and a church friend to the other when she was a young mother.
The number seven represents completion or perfection. I do my best to write 7 gratitudes each day. I miss some days, but I'm pretty consistent about this daily practice. Sometimes I have to think for a while, but when the list is complete, I know it is perfect.

Everyday gratitudes

11/27/2024

Most mornings in my journal I write 7 things for which I'm grateful. Today I wrote numbers 1978 through 1984. Oh, I've missed a few days, such as when traveling or when I get up late. There are many repeats, a current one being "No news," which means I didn't listen or read any. Since the election, every morning I've been grateful for that.! Other repeats have to do with a friend I'm seeing, or if there is a day of solitude on the calendar. And then there is my all time favorite, my mom's '4 gratitudes,' which she acknowledged each day: (in no particular order)--"my friends and family, my faith, my health, and my life." Missing you mom at Thanksgiving time.

Joyful, hopeful, and grateful~

8/24/2024

More about Joy. I'm feeling it with the nomination of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
My purpose here is not to talk about politics, but to lift up joy. You see, my disposition is joyful and hopeful, so when there is a lot of negative conversation I don't have a place for it; I don't know what to do with it. What I notice, however, is that the negativity slips into my being and I begin to respond through a veil of gloom. Oh, I know I shouldn't respond in this way; I have a choice, but I'm not powerful that way. My faith helps me but I'm a human being, living in community with others--my personal communities, my country and the world. I need joy in each of them. As my mom would say. "Very Grateful." And I am.

Very grateful for my evening walk

6/8/2023

Hoping that all who are having to stay in on a June evening will find relief soon.

Gratitude among difficult news

10/26/2021

“Okay, what are you grateful for on this rainy day?” Self asks Self. Here is my list: good sleep, justice workers, Margo at Panera, course participants, THIS DAY, statio*, and the SSJE garden. In my 2021 gratitude book , these are numbers 2049-2055. I always write 7. If you do the math you’ll see that I miss some days altogether, but I never write just 1 or 2 or 3, always 7. You see, coming up with 3 is easy, whereas coming up with 7 pushes me and encourages me to be positive about situations that are really awful.
Right now I’m struggle with that. I just heard that a friend has esophageal cancer. Oh, I can come with some gratitudes that can arise from her condition, but right now they feel pretty pathetic, and definitely don’t outweigh the prognosis. I’m working on it, but no way does cancer trump the gratitude that is life.
* Satio is being where you are supposed to be before you need to go there. Joan Chittister, in The Monastic Heart.

Start everything with gratitude!

10/23/2021

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you undoubted know that I am big on expressing gratitude. My mom started her day with her four: her family and friends, health, faith, and life. She knew how to sum it up,; to be sure, gratitude was at the forefront of what she did each day. I try to do the same.
From time to time we all can find ourselves down or depressed, and some people seem to have a more negative disposition than others. And then, the pandemic has brought all of us new challenges to how we respond to what going on. Gratitude doesn’t always become our default position.
In a recent group discussion I participated, two of us started by sharing something positive, three with something negative. I’m not belittling the tough stuff that’s going on with people; I’m just observing. I know and believe that the way we start the day, a conversation, or an activity affects our attitude toward it, and even the outcome.

Powerful fall days

10/15/2020

Would anyone dispute that it is easier to be content with silence, solitude, and simplicity on a beautiful fall day? Science support that mood swings improve when the sun is out. But the goal, at least my goal, is to settle into deep contentment regardless of the weather. I can love ‘a’ rainy day if ‘a’ means one. But even then, a tiny pall sneaks in.

These days I am aware that whatever I write comes from a privileged position. That’s who I am, but it doesn’t mean I want to shake it off and go forth on my merry way. Let me never forget that I’m in a cozy house on a rainy day!!
Remembering is a both trivial and powerful. Trivial if I take if for granted; powerful if I find ways to be grateful.

Very grateful for cataract surgery

8/30/2019

Cataract surgery is complete; right and left eyes done. The world is bright, each leaf has a distinctive shape, and I can read and work on a jigsaw puzzle without glasses. This means no glasses for driving; thankfully my license agrees. In the evening I need a stronger reading light, but I can fine one around the house.
I am very grateful that Medicare pays for this and that I can afford the extra for the corrective lens. I am very grateful that I live in a country and state with state-of-the-art medical technology and doctors. I am very grateful that some of these doctors join Doctors Without Borders and perform cataract surgery for people around the world.

Positive gratitudes

11/23/2018

On this day after Thanksgiving I could be talking in my usual way about gratitude--what we’re grateful for, what we ‘should’ be grateful for, personal graitudes, and gratitudes for the world. I’m all in for these kinds of expressions, but today I’m thinking of the power of stating gratitude in positive terms. For example, “How wonderful we can get out for a walk,” instead of, “Well at least it is not raining.”
Speaking positively keeps me away from making judgments. I more apt to see people for who they are, rather than who they are not.
So, on this day after Thanksgiving, I am grateful for friends and family just as they are, and for the food just as it was prepared and served.

Very grateful, very hopeful~

11/7/2018

I feel mysteriously calm about yesterday’s election results. No, not all of my candidates won, but enough did to make me think that democracy is still at work. It’s not the thinking that brought on the calm, but the realization that not everyone agrees with me, and that’s okay because good is prevailing. I feel hopeful.
My words may sound trite and obvious, but my feelings aren’t. These feelings of relief, acceptance, compassion, and love for all human beings are hard to come by. They are deep and yet light. This morning they got me out for an early walk to appreciate the beauty and freedom of the moment. Very grateful, very hopeful.