Last Sunday, I preached about gratitude — one of my favorite subjects! The sermon was a spoken version of my written musing from Luke 17:11-19, the text from October 12.

Also, this musing appears in A Beautiful Year.

The message is encouraging: Gifts always surround us and you don’t need to say ‘thank you.’ But being attentive to gratitude makes us whole. Gratefulness isn’t an obligation but it is a moral response to the gifts we’ve been given.

Highland Presbyterian in Lancaster, PA was a full house on Sunday morning! The congregation was warm and thoughtful. I hope you enjoy listening in. It was a good morning.

And, of course, it is always a good morning to consider gratitude.

Enjoy listening! Hope it strengthens you today!

INSPIRATION

Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without and beside us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things must come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege; that we are miraculously, part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape….

Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness.— David Whyte, “Gratitude” from Consolations

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Things are REALLY busy right now — I’m on my way to the Southwest for a private event and then the big Richard Rohr conference, Re-Vision, where I’m speaking next Sunday morning.

A Beautiful Year will be available for sale at the Re-Vision Conference. That’s the last place it can be purchased before the official release date of November 4. Get your copy early!

I appreciate your prayers for safe and timely travel. Thank you!

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