Lent Devotion: Gratitude Practices
As part of our recent Lent in a Box event, Church Anew commissioned a daily Lenten devotional around the sermon series offered for Lent: Shepherd Me O God. As part of our blog during this season, we are delighted to share it with you. The themes revolve around spiritual practices that emerge from studying the 23rd Psalm. May you find a meaningful and holy Lenten season.
Gratitude as home.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Part of gratitude is being at peace with what is, instead of longing for what isn’t. How can we dwell in the moment without trying to manipulate it? How can we find a home in the season we find ourselves, knowing that the only constant is change?
When my kids were very small, we were in the backyard playing on a blanket. The sun was shining, and the wind enlivened me. A plane flew overhead, and we stopped everything to watch it fly by, wonder where the passengers were going, and wish them well. I traveled a lot as a young adult and joyfully let the arrival of babies root me. In that moment, of all the places in the world that plane might be flying, I was right where I wanted to be, in my body, in the backyard, with my kids, exploring our delight.
Gratitude is wanting what is right in front of you. It is seeing this tiny, ordinary moment quaking with holiness. Gratitude, embodied, is to find a home within. With gratitude we hold the key to feeling at home no matter where we are. When we are grateful for our bodies, our bodies become home. When we are grateful for what is right in front of us, the present moment becomes home. Be where your feet are.
Choose a place in your home, like a staircase or sink, that you associate with a mundane task or movement. When you are there, give thanks for this moment and this season of life. Notice a sense of home in gratitude embodied.
Gratitude as Practice
Exodus 25:8-9
While the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness, they got a little whiny. They missed the comfort routine offered, even in captivity, and worried about the future. God asked them to build a tabernacle so that God may dwell among them. Extensive and detailed directions followed. But God was already dwelling among them. The tabernacle wasn’t for God, then, as much as it was for the Israelites. Perhaps God just wanted them to stop complaining and focusing on what was hard about the wilderness. They got busy building something together, and the practice shifted their disposition. They stopped complaining (for a bit), and in doing so felt God’s nearness.
For a long time, I thought of gratitude as a feeling. More recently I have thought of it as a practice. It is easy to say, “Thank you.” The inner transformation happens moment-to-moment when we choose to put gratitude into action. It is taking time to write a detailed thank you note, giving generously and strategically for the common good, showing up undistracted to people in our lives, and not rationing our love and power. There are wilderness elements to our existence in this season. I think of the Israelites and wonder how putting my gratitude into building something might help me feel the nearness of God.
Write down three things for which you are grateful. How else might you put gratitude into action today? What can you build so that God can dwell more readily among us?
Gratitude as Presence
John 12:1-8
When I picture Mary anointing Jesus’ feet, I picture her bringing a deep quality of presence to the moment. She was able to see Jesus as a human deserving tender attention, in addition to seeing him as the Messiah preparing to die. She took time to offer him gratitude while he was still with them.
My friend recently got diagnosed with Lymphoma. He is young and otherwise healthy, and the news totally rocked us. We are vulnerable, waiting and praying. Instantly, I started paying attention. I am bringing a different quality of presence to my days. I wake up grateful to be alive, grateful for my spouse, kids, friends, and job. It should not take tragedy to invite us to be present and to stop taking this day and this life for granted.
I often think of Lent as a spiritual check in, an opportunity to shake the dust off our souls and bring a different quality of presence to the little and not so little moments of our days. Like Mary with Jesus, tending to each other lovingly is never time we will regret. Instead, gratitude grows.
Change the pictures in your frames. Choose photos of people, places, and moments that you are grateful for, and send that gratitude out to the world when you look at the photos. How can you bring your full presence and tender affection to your loved ones today?
Gratitude as Acknowledgement
Psalm 9: 1-2
Offering prayers of thanksgiving ground me. I don’t think God needs to hear them; I think I need to say them. It shifts how I see, how I move through the world, how I act. It is a spiritual practice of remembering and a rightful acknowledgment of where things come from. All good things come from God. In that acknowledgment, my ego drops away, and I loosen my grip on what I think is mine. I soften, humbled by the abundance of God’s goodness around me. The sun comes from God, and it shines on me. The food I eat comes from God and it nourishes me. The children I am raising come from God and they delight me.
People and organizations can make land acknowledgment statements to recognize and respect Indigenous people that steward the land and understand what brought us to reside on the land. I live on land that does not belong to me.
I come from Ireland and Poland. I come from farmers, dreamers, and feminist Catholic nuns. I come from “Always do your best” and “Put your lips on.” I come from firm handshakes, Diet Coke, and cartwheels in the grass. I come from Margie and Mike.
I come from God and I am grateful.
Today, give a nod to machines like your coffee maker, computer, phone, and car before using them to grow your gratitude for the things that bring ease to our days. Nod as an acknowledgment of relationship to objects, our dependence on God, and our interdependence on each other.
Gratitude as Seeing
Genesis 18: 9-12
When I was thirteen, I fell on a gymnastic tumbling pass and shattered my left elbow. The doctor almost had to amputate my arm. That injury gave me a lens of gratitude. Gratitude is a way of seeing. It is seeing that there could have been nothing but there is something. It is looking out at the gorgeous, expansive universe and whispering the line of Jane Kenyon, “How, when there could have been nothing, does it happen that there is love, kindness, and beauty?” I walk through my days with the grateful outlook of someone who could have had one arm, but instead, against the odds, has two.
When I was thirty-three, I had two miscarriages, back-to-back. I sat in the reality that I may not become a mother, a role I yearned for. In that place of brokenness and deep wanting, God loved me and reminded me that I am enough. Eventually I carried a child full term, and when my water broke to begin labor, I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought of Sarah, laughing in disbelief, fear, and awe, and laughed with her.
These days, one of my favorite places in the world is sitting on the couch, my two arms wrapped around my two boys. So often, delight at the goodness of it all bubbles up and over as laughter and tears. My kids call it “happy crying.” My body just can’t contain the overflowing gratitude.
Where do you see love, kindness, and beauty today? Look up to the sky. Intentionally touch wildness. Remember that you belong in the web of life.
