Ever Open to Joy and Love

in the last few days, i've been thinking about gratitude.  as i meditate, i try to list many of the things for which i am grateful.  it's impossible to compile a complete list of everything that blesses our lives.  i am amazed, as i contemplate those many things and people.  my list seems endless.  i was talking with a friend about this topic a few days ago.  his wife had placed a tray of cookies in front of us, and i said, "just think of these cookies.  how many people were involved in making it possible for us to enjoy this treat!  there are those who produced the raw products, those who processed them, those who delivered them to the store, the store employees who made them available to us, the person who devised the recipe to combine the ingredients, the manufacturers of the implements, bowls, and oven that made it possible to bake the cookies, and finally your wife who prepared them, not to mention those involved in the creation of the tray on which they are being served."  when we say we are thankful for the cookies, we forget most of those who made our reason for gratitude possible.

in every facet of our lives, we encounter similar situations.  we are dependent on so many people, people we have never seen or thought of.  our lives are made up of an interconnected web of people to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without ever realizing it.  we can take any one thing for which we are thankful and meditate on all those who made our object of gratitude possible.  every sunday in most churches we sing "praise God from whom all blessings flow," but we don't stop to think of all those through whom that flow takes place so that we can enjoy God's blessings.  it is not God alone that blesses us, but a myriad stream of others who are the agents of blessing.

may we not forget that we are dependent on many others for everything that we have and enjoy.  may we become a part of the stream of blessing that flows from God and passes through an infinite number of other beings.  may we take time to be grateful and, in so doing, become the object of another's gratitude.  shalom.