Quote From Grateful:

“If we practice gratefulness, it becomes a natural and normal way of engaging the world.

With gratitude, our hearts open toward one another. Being thankful can make us

different.”

Awareness:

Gratitude is something we feel and something we do. If we attend to the emotion of

thanks and intentionally act gratefully, however, we actually become thankful people.

Social scientists have discovered that positive emotions of gratitude drive out negative

emotions like fear and anxiety; that practicing gratitude creates new connections of

community. Thankfulness creates personal well-being and fosters the common good.

Being a grateful person means being resilient in crisis and strengthens us to resist

injustice.

Have you ever considered that thanksgiving creates the possibility of common good?

That gratitude opens us toward personal and social transformation?

Practice:

Watch or read the news today thoughtfully and pay attention to your emotional

responses. Does the news increase negative emotions? Make you angry in debilitating

ways? Do not deny these feelings, but instead balance them by bringing gratefulness into

the picture by reflecting on these questions:

• What, in this story, gives reason to be thankful?
• Where might gratitude be located in this (tragedy, policy, political decision, report, debate)?
• How might a shared practice of gratitude unite instead of divide us?
• Did my perspective change as I considered gratitude in relation to the day’s events?

Jot your responses in a small notebook or on your cell phone. Consider sharing this

exercise with your family and friends.

Prayer:

I want to change. I want the world to change. Fear and division exhausts me. Exhausts us.

Make me an instrument of gratitude that I might discover a way of mercy and love that

leads to peace. For the sake of healing my own heart and healing the world.