Give Thanks to God, the Divine, the Creator

As the Thanksgiving holiday draws near, memories begin flickering in my mind like old movies: The turkey, pumpkin, and cornucopia stickers of grade school fame that adorned my school papers. The drawings we were given to color, featuring smiling pilgrims holding muskets, Native Americans holding vegetables, lady pilgrims wearing aprons, all surrounding a cooked turkey and other holiday foods filling a long table. My family seated around a table watching with great anticipation while the roasted turkey was being carved. And just before the serving of food started, hands joining and my uncle leading us in thanking God or the Divine for the food, for all of the gifts he had bestowed on us, and, most importantly, for each other.

When I reflect on my personal relationship with God and the evolution of my prayer, it seems that my prayers thanking God are deeply rooted in Thanksgiving and its traditions. In my younger years, that was the time when those around me were outwardly thanking God for our abundances. It was also a time when we would pray together, not a typical activity for the rest of the year in my family.

Being light years beyond grade school, I am not sure if children still see the stickers or color those pictures of the First Thanksgiving that I experienced. When I look around my adult world, I see turkeys, ads for pies, Thanksgiving Dinner dining opportunities in restaurants, advertisements for parades, and football games. I see no ads about new Thanksgiving prayers or prayer books for families in preparation for this holiday. The media seems not to be inviting us to give thanks to God as did our ancestors.

I think there is some irony when I remember my younger brother talking about the widely televised parade as “The Macy Day Parade.” I smile thinking about that perception of Thanksgiving, but then start to wonder if it is not a more appropriate contemporary name for the parade associated with this November holiday. I wonder if the roots of that holiday disintegrated and left a more commercial holiday standing in its place? A time for a big meal, watching a parade, football, bargain shopping for Christmas, and planned family time. Maybe I am missing something? But I am sensing, probably not.

So, this makes me wonder if as a culture we have backed off from setting aside even one day a year to thank God, the Divine, our Creator, for the abundance He has given this country? It reminds me of this section of the letter of St. Paul to the Romans:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Romans 1:21

Have our foolish hearts become darkened? Has our thinking become futile? When you honestly think about all that is invested in a huge parade, a football game, and even a huge meal, is there truthfully any long-term benefit, or are they all merely fleeting moments of varying durations?

...always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Ephesians 5:20

Do I thank God enough for all the blessings He has placed, and continues to place, in my life? God deserves my gratitude, every moment of my life, but sadly, I do not always remember to share my gratitude with Him?

This Thanksgiving and in future days, I will take to heart the words of St. Paul:

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.   Colossians 3:1

Regardless of your religious leanings and how you address the Divine, may you and your families find ways to give thanks and to open your grateful hearts. May you receive an abundance of blessings.

-       Martha Corkery  -

View from the Ditch: A Reflection on the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37)

Have you ever felt like you were living your life in the ditch?  You fell into the ditch because of some life circumstance and simply need a little help getting back on the road.   

People walk by and ignore you, criticize, pity or worse yet, make fun of you.  Some yell down to you from the high road and offer help.  Your hopes rise as you listen to them telling you how to get out of the ditch and up on the high road again.  You try their suggestions, and you slip on the steep slope leading up to the road.  The person up above stays with you for a while and says, “keep trying” but everything you do fails, and you find yourself bloody, bruised, exhausted and still in the ditch.  The person looks at you, shakes their head, and goes off mumbling, “if they only would live the way I live, they would be out of the ditch and on the high road.”  The experience with the person on the high road happens several more times with the same results.  After a while you feel distrustful of anyone walking that high road, telling you how to live your life like they live theirs and you will find happiness, fulfillment, and wholeness.  You sit down in the ditch ready to simply give up and feel that all is hopeless.   

After a little while an ordinary person appears beside you.  They are dirty and bloody from sliding down the steep hillside next to the road to meet you in the ditch.  They are speaking to you and you can hardly believe what they are saying, “can I sit with you in this ditch?”  You are suspicious and wonder why this person is paying attention to you and not with the others on the high road.  Not caring about anything, you say to the stranger, “sure, have a seat.”  The two of you sit in silence for a while and you ask the person, “why are you here, in this ditch and not up on the high road with the others?” The person begins to tell you, their story; “I saw you in the ditch and my heart moved with compassion for you because I spent a lot of time in this very same ditch.  I wanted to be up on that high road, enjoying life, feeling good about myself and my life.  I tried to climb the hillside, but the mud and rocks caused me to slip and fall.  In my weakened state, I couldn’t, as hard as I tried, make it up that steep embankment on my own.  One day someone came down off that high road and helped me, step-by-step, get to the top.  Even when I got to the top, they saw that I was so weak from being in the ditch that they stayed with me, bandaged my wounds, and comforted me.  There was no sense of urgency or judgement.  All I experienced from the person was compassion, acceptance and understanding.  They saw where I was and what I needed and because they too had been in the ditch and benefited by the kindness of another, they wanted to help me and, in some small way, repay the person that helped them.  This is why I am here, sitting in this ditch with you, offering you a hand to climb the hill to the high road.  We will go as fast or as slow as you need.  You set the pace and tell me what you need.  It is the least I can do considering I was so lost and alone until another good Samaritan helped me.”  You take the person’s hand, stand up and begin the trek up to the high road, warning them the whole time that it will be hard for them to walk beside you and in return they say, “that’s okay, we can do this together.”   

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a great story in the bible that encourages us to help those who are struggling.  Not by yelling directions from the high road, but by sitting in the ditch with someone until they are ready to move.  We are called to go to those uncomfortable places, love people, walk with people, help them discover their God given gifts and celebrate the wholeness they discover when they realize they are uniquely created and loved by God.   I have been blessed in my life to encounter many Good Samaritans, people who start the difficult journey with the wounded by first sitting in the ditch with them.   

The spiritual directors I know, especially those at SacredListening.net are quality individuals who walk with people on their journey to wholeness.  They do it with humility and gratitude, always keeping in mind that it is not about their journey but the person in the ditch.  These directors see the opportunity to walk with individuals as a great blessing by God.  My spiritual director was the good Samaritan for me and when I warned him that I would be moving slow, he said to me, “that’s okay, I am patient.”  Grateful does not express my feelings about the love of Jesus that he showed me that day.  My life is forever changed and better because of him.   

More recently, I have been blessed to discover a whole other set of Good Samaritans and they are the coaches with OptaVia.  I was sitting in the ditch having gained eighty pounds.  Time and again I would try to diet, and I would lose some of the weight but then always gain it back with an additional ten or fifteen pounds.  Finally, I started having health issues, found myself unable to bike, hike or even get up from a seated position on the floor.  I was listening to people on the high road say to me, “you need to eat the way I do” or “you need to love yourself the way you are (overweight and sick)”.  No one was seeing me, and they didn’t want to get to know me either.  What mattered to the people on the high road was the superiority they could show.  Ask them to come down into the ditch and they would shake their heads and abandon me.  Then, one day a lovely woman showed up in the ditch beside me.  She sat down and said, “when you are ready, we can start walking to better health together.”  She too had been in the ditch and knew exactly how I felt.  I got up and started to walk with her and we are still walking together.  She continues to be an inspiration for me, and I am abundantly grateful for her patience with me, especially when I have fallen.  I have learned new habits (and I am still learning) to help me live a life that integrates spiritual, physical, and emotional wellbeing into a wholeness that I now know will provide me with optimal health.  She inspires me so much that I too have become an OptaVia coach.  We walk together and when I see another person in the ditch, we stop and climb down the embankment to sit with that person.  We tell them exactly what she told me, “When you are ready, we can start walking to better health together.” 

Are you in the ditch?  Call out and we will crawl down that steep hill and sit with you until you are ready to walk.  My advice: focus on Jesus, don’t listen to the people who call down from the high road, take the hand of the Good Samaritan and rise to walk.  You can do this!  

Sandy Monier 

Spiritual Director, Artist, Independent OptaVia Health Coach 

BlessedbyDesignASD.com 

Listening for God's Dream in times of Darkness

In the month of May, this year, I lost my sight completely, for about three weeks, because of an accident in my home. During those weeks I lived my life in darkness. It felt like life slowed down, because I couldn’t see the movements that was going on around in the outer world. Yet I still had my conversation with God.

After a while I noticed things in a new way. I became more aware of the movements inside of me. You could say that it was like a movement in my soul. Then I recalled what Saint Ignatius talks about in his Spiritual Exercises. He talks about the movement of the spirit and the importance of listening to those movements. Above all, to discern between the good and the bad spirit. In more contemporary words you could say the difference between being attuned to oneself or not, that is being attuned to Gods’ dream for each one of us.

Through those weeks in May it became more important than ever to analyze which movements that drew me out from self-centeredness into connection with other people around me and God. Asking what God called me to in this new situation.

Life is a fragile thing. Still, both in good times as well as in bad times, there is a possibility for each one of us to seek the movement of God and his spirit in every time of our life.

Psalms 139:12

Even darkness is not dark to You,

And the night is as bright as the day.

Darkness and light are alike to You.

(NASB)

— Hillevi Bergvall