Dear Spiritual Family,
Happy Thanksgiving Week! It is a time when we are encouraged to pause and feel and express our gratitude. And when we are in authentic gratitude, it is like leaving stop and go traffic and freely traveling the expressway of life. We can’t be focused on lack or limitation at the same time we are rejoicing in “thanksgiving.”
In our video message to you today, we are looking at three general areas of gratitude as we, metaphorically, gather at the Thanksgiving Table. First, our thoughts, our memories and our expectations of this Season are typically on our families and friends. Mary and I share a few of those times with you and encourage you to recall, especially, the more light-hearted ones.
Here, as in the other areas we speak to, it is incumbent on each of us to use our spiritual understanding and the grace of forgiveness to heal any prior or anticipated upsets with family or friends.
Second, is the focus on gratitude for necessities like the food we eat, the shelter of our homes, our ways of getting about – in general the things that surround us. For some today, this picture is one of abundance, for others, perhaps, less than ideal. But by fully feeling thankfulness for what we have, our consciousness is lifted and we are more apt to find peace in the present moments.
And finally, gratitude for the things that deepen. Virtually all of us have had experiences in our lives – with family and friends, with things, with our own physical, mental and emotional lives where we were or are deeply challenged. You’re asked to pause and reflect on one or more of those times and how they moved you to grow. Often what looked like an end, if not “the” end, was in fact, an opening to a new beginning.
We conclude the video with Mary reading from A Course in Miracles, a piece that has touched us over the decades. It is found in the Text, Chapter 19, IV. A. i. It begins with, “Love too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard…..”
We invite you to join us at the table as we come together in the sweet energy of thanksgiving to affect our own healing and that of our sisters and brothers wherever they may be.
In gratitude and love for you,
Rev. Steve and Mary