Rev. Dr. Ben Boswell | Judges 13:1-25 from A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church Year W by The Rev. Wil Gafney, PhD. |  Judges 13:8-14 & 24-25 “Contrary to what many of us believe, joy does not lead to gratitude, it’s the other way around. Gratitude is not a random feeling we experience as a response to the beauty and goodness of life. Gratitude is a spiritual practice we can engage in to spark joy. Gratitude is a resource that has the power to eviscerate our anxiety. In fact, it is often the case that summoning immense gratitude is required to break the deathly pattern of fear, greed, and anger in our lives because gratitude is often the only thing that can get our minds off ourselves and onto what God is doing in the world—the work of delivering people from scarcity into God’s beloved community of abundance.”“There is much for us to be anxious about these days, but the promise of this season is the possibility of our deliverance from all our fears and failures, all of our illusions and delusions, all our anxiety and anger, all our inequalities and injustices. The promise of deliverance is that we can go from our life as it is to our life as it could be—from our community as it is to our community as it could be—from our church as it is to our church as it could be—from our world as is to our world as it could be.” – Rev. Dr. Ben Boswell