47. More Gratitude

I'm grateful that I live in a time and place where dentistry is practiced by trained doctors and not by quacks.  That I live in the age of ibuprofrin, vicodin, and antiobiotics.

I'm grateful, though I'm sure I will miss the healthy version of it, that next Friday I will be rid of this infected, fractured tooth forevermore.

I'm grateful that one bright day I will either have no need of teeth anymore OR that I will have teeth restored to resurrected perfection.

Pain is relative.  But there is no pain quite like tooth pain.

46. The Practice of Gratitude

"Gratitude ... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy."

-Henri Nouwen

 Research actually shows the habitual practice of gratitude can change one's brain chemistry.  By no means is this a cure for severe clinical depression, but speaking as one who battles the blues and finds himself struggling if not with depression, certainly with meloncholia, I can tell you that the spiritual practice of gratitude does help me.  I don't talk about it much; I do my best to cope.

Not to subject the world to my self-theraphy, but... okay, I'm going to subject the world--at least the tiny fraction of it that stumbles on this blog--with my practice of what Nouwen calls the discipline of gratitude.  It's discipline I'm trying to practice each morning when I wake where I intentionally express gratitude to God for big and small things.  Perhaps there's too much selfish motive in this--I really do want to change my brain chemistry. 

So, anyhow, practice number one is to remember that gratitude isn't primarily about me and what I get, but about God and who He is.

As a late colleague used to say through his long battle with cancer that eventually took his life, "inhale grace, exhale gratitude." 

To be continued...