My Advent Gratitude Practice
So I have a long streak going in my journal of daily gratitude entries (2000+days and counting). But honestly the last few weeks it has felt a bit like going through the motions. It wasn’t that I was going to quit doing it but I was grateful (“pun” intended) that something spoke into this for me on Friday morning to challenge and push my practice.
The 11/28 email from CAC was entitled “Minding Positivity” and was a callback to something that I heard from Richard Rohr several years ago that I have shared many times since. He wrote:
Brain studies have shown that we may be hardwired to focus on problems at the expense of a positive vision. The human brain wraps around fear and problems like Velcro. We dwell on bad experiences long after the fact and spend vast amounts of energy anticipating what might go wrong in the future. Conversely, positivity and gratitude and simple happiness slide away like cheese on hot Teflon. Studies like the ones done by the neuropsychologist Rick Hanson show that we must consciously hold on to a positive thought or feeling for a minimum of fifteen seconds before it leaves any imprint in the neurons.1
The fifteen second piece is what really spoke to me. I remember hearing this from Fr. Rohr in a Rob Bell podcast several years ago and it has stayed with me and is something I have tried to practice. But it spoke to me in a needed way on Thursday as I recognized that my “going through the motions” may have been more due to the fact that I was simply waiting until just before bed to review my gratitudes. When we don’t allow those gratitude moments to imprint upon us, be they something we witness or something beautiful shared with us or a moment of a big belly laugh, then we allow the negatives and the conflicts to be that which imprints upon us.
And then there was this in Rohr’s message...
We must—yes, must—make a daily and even hourly choice to focus on the good, the true, and the beautiful.2
Daily is what I had been doing. But hourly - in-the-moment - is what I feel like I had not been practicing as I used to. I had stopped having those dwelling and imprinting moments. So I decided on a practice for Advent (that will hopefully become a regular thing) to record my gratitudes through the day. If it is more than three (my normal to write each night), that’s great. But the more important part was getting back to that “hourly choice” and the in-the-moment fifteen seconds to imprint upon me and allow the following to weave its way into me.
The only way, then, to increase authentic spirituality is to deliberately practice actually enjoying a positive response and a grateful heart. And the benefits are very real. By following through on conscious choices, we can rewire our responses toward love, trust, and patience.3
So, this started on Friday morning with a walk around a lake near where we were staying for Thanksgiving with this (literal) reflective moment...
With this, I simply wrote, “this photo.” Others from Friday were:
The sound of the trees singing as the stiff wind blew through them during the walk
This line from First Nations Psalm 143:11 - Grandfather, give me the life of beauty and harmony that is true to your name.
That second one was so appropriate...may this gratitude give me the life of beauty and harmony that is true to your name. Amen.
I invite you to join me in this practice however it works best for you. For me, I’ll be using my Day One journaling app on my phone. For others it might be having a small notebook and pen with you. It might be texting or emailing yourself in the moment. But I’d love to hear if you wanted to share in this Advent practice.
Random Other Things
No Scout photo today as she wasn’t with us on the trip but a few other photos…
Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed
https://cac.org/daily-meditations/minding-positivity/
Ibid
Ibid
I also read Fr Rohr’s posts this week. It reminds me of Brother Lawrence’s “practicing the presence of God. 2 sides of the same coin. By the way, what an awesome charcuterie board!! Did you guys demolish the whole thing?
Your creative wife is a charcuterie artist! Thanks for this post about real gratitude today.