Sunday, October 12: Healing and the Flowering of Gratitude

To Practice:

• Prayerfully re-read these passages (or listen) again in the manner of Lectio Divina, reading them aloud to engage more of your senses and feel the vibrations in your body. Gaze at the image. What do you receive for your journey now?
• Take a moment to consider who, in this society or in your community, is marginalized and in need of mercy – those seen as having “wrong” faiths, actions, origins, genders? How can you heal your preconceptions in communion with Spirit?
• In his book The Path of Centering Prayer, David Frenette offers suggestions on ways to create a “bridge” between silent prayer and activity. At the end of a period of Centering Prayer, we remain in silence with our eyes closed for a couple of minutes. Then, to transition back to activity, we might offer up the prayer period to someone in need, bring our attention to our sense perceptions to help “ground” the effects of the prayer, or say the Our Father or another prayer using words. Another option would be to incorporate a gratitude prayer or practice as a bridge into activity when emerging from a period of Centering Prayer. You might simply look around where you are sitting and gratefully notice the blessings that surround you: the morning air, the warmth of your body, the cat sauntering across the room. For more inspiration on gratitude practice, read “The Art of Gratitude” by Justin Coutts at his blog (In Search of a New Eden) HERE.
• If you feel called to expand on gratitude as a complement to your contemplative practice, Grateful Living, the organization founded by Benedictine Br. David Steindl-Rast, has additional suggestions for practicing, embodying, and serving from a bearing of gratitude on a daily basis. Check out Grateful Living’s website HERE.

You may find the full email reflection here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/2025_word-of-the-week-oct12

Borderlands are a familiar experience for me. During the Wednesday gathering what came into focus for me is grace is a gift, not a reward! and during the week grace is a “flowering”.  Initially on Sunday, the image disturbed me – these black fingers – gradually – I noticed the two ringed fingers on each hand – it is only the index finger that had no ring – this is the finger  I often use by  pointing…It is this pointing that holds the key to “flowering”. It can be used in judgment ( not seeing reality as it is), or “oh look at the “flowering” of grace. I experience this flowering as joy and gratitude, and sink into the blessing of the moment, even though I have been in the grips of a virus this week.

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