Journal of Sacred Work

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.   – Cicero

   Is gratitude truly the parent of all the other virtures as Cicero wrote more than two thousand years ago? The more I think about it, the more I agree that it is. Gratitude is a beautiful form of self care. When we live in it’s glow, we feel Love’s light passing through us. This gives us the strength to practice some of the other virtues.
   It also helps free us from some of life’s vices. As I cultivate gratitude, anger eases away from me, frustration departs, hunger for approval eases…

   In gratitude, I feel blessed. In this state, I am all the more likely to want to give to others, to reach out to the poor, to help the vulnerable. For gratitude is not the same as complacency. Complacency is a form of arrogance. When I am grateful, I seek to share more with others.
   As President Kennedy said, We must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. This is why gratitude is such a crucial practice for caregivers. As appreciation flows through us for our many blessings, we want to be a blessing to those who are less fortunate. We want to live the words we speak.
   As with the other six principles, the practice of gratitude can be difficult. We are more likely to
make a list of our problems than a list of our blessings. This is what Eric Hoffer (left) understood when he wrote that, The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

   We need to make counting our blessings a ritual of thoughtfulness because each time we do this we are refreshed with love. The author of Proverbs wrote (at 11:25) He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.  This tells us that as we share the blessing of our love with others, we will find a further refreshment.
   This practice does not mean a continual pattern of comparison with other’s travails. The practice of gratitude is not enhanced with language like, "I’m so glad I don’t have cancer like Gladys does." The reason this is an ineffective practice of love is that this language can cause us to look down on Gladys with pity. In order to elevate ourselves, we unwittingly step on the shoulders of another who we may imagine is worse off than (or below) us.
   Instead, we may revel in whatever good health, good fortune, or joy we may have. In the process, we will be living by the seventh principle and discovering, as with each of the other six principles, that living love is living with joy.
  As Meister Eckhart spoke: If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

-Erie Chapman