The last twenty years or so, spiritual/new age authors have sent this message
to readers: "You have something broken about you and I can fix it."

Now a newer, truer message must be heard: "You are here to deliver a beautiful gift to
the world - and it's a gift that benefits everyone. Remember it, and get on with it."

AS THE LAWS OF IRONY would have it, the person who opened my eyes to the secret power of Gratitude was probably the poorest (if poor is measured materially) person I ever met. I was in my mid-thirties. I had grown up in consumerism, and like most other boomers, I had put down my peace-march banners and was now marching toward prosperity.

On a vacation in Arizona, in an obscure little art gallery, a Native American ceremonial pipe caught my eye. I asked about it, about the artist, about whether a white woman could own such an object. I left the gallery without it. Wouldn't you know it? The pipe showed up in my dreams the next three nights. I called the gallery back and they shipped it to me.

For a few weeks it sat on my altar, bowl not attached to the stem. Finally I decided that I needed to be schooled in the art of using it. I sought out a teacher. He lived in a dirt house with a dirt floor. He seemed to own next to nothing. He was very thin. I wondered if he ate enough. His eyes sparkled.

We sat on the ground, legs folded, with a hand-woven altar rug between us. He taught me a very long prayer, involving placing thirteen pinches of tobacco in the pipe, each representing a specific aspect of Wankan Tanka (the great mother/father god.) Through this prayer the pipe holder gave thanks to everything - the air, the fire, the water, the stones, the earth, the animals, the creepy crawlers, the fliers, the elders, the ancestors, the avatars, the stars, the galaxies. Each pinch of tobacco represented a specific way to be in Gratitude.

In my world, prayer was a petition. One prayed to ask a favor of God. Now I was being taught a very different concept. Prayer is a way of realigning oneself as one with the One. It had nothing to do with getting. It had everything to do with allowing oneself to recognize the blessing of life.

That's the spiritual definition of Gratitude - recognizing the blessing of life.

From The Invisible Garment:

With Gratitude in your invisible garment, you are constantly aware that life is a gift. You never forget that the gift must be used well, or it will use you. You can see the connections in all aspects of life, and this makes you take a deeper level of responsibility or accountability than most people. You know the law of cause and effect on a bone-deep level; therefore, you are always alert to what effect you may be causing.

For many years I prayed almost daily with my pipe. Starting the day with an expression Gratitude for the blessing of life certainly puts the stresses we create in our lives in a different perspective.

Now, if you're like me, there are times when you just don't want to hear, "Be thankful for everything that has happened to you because it has made you who you are" from those annoyingly perky, positive-thinking New Agers. There are times when you just want to say, "Shut up and let me wallow and whine." Indeed, wallowing and whining does serve a purpose from time to time. If nothing else, it reminds us that wallowing and whining breeds more wallowing and whining. No one ever whined herself into a better mood. Gratitude, on the other hand, breeds awe and wonder, joy and peace.

Tammy Duckworth was born in Bankok, Thailand where her American father, a retired Marine, worked for the United Nations. Her mother is Chinese. Her father's job took them to several interesting countries during her life. She eventually landed in Illinois where she got her PhD. In undergraduate school she had joined ROTC and then the National Guard. Trained as a Black Hawk pilot, she was deployed to Iraq in 2004. On November 21 of that year, after a lunch of chocolate milk shakes and stir-fry in the Green Zone, her chopper was hit by a grenade. Originally mistaken for dead, she was dragged to another Black Hawk and evacuated. Eight days later she awoke in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and learned she had lost both legs (in spite of the fact that her first question was, "Why do my feet hurt?")

During her difficult recovery, Tammy realized that she had survived for a reason; that her mission was not finished. In 2006 she ran for U.S. Congress in her home "very red" district in Illinois. Though she didn't win that congressional seat (she lost by less than 2% of the votes), she was highly visible on the national media during the campaign, and her voice was one that contributed to an over-all Democratic victory in the country.

Shortly after the campaign, Governor Rod Blagojevich asked her to head the Illinois Department of Veteran's Affairs. She gladly accepted the job. She has expressed often how happy she is to have the opportunity and needed compassion to make sure that her brothers and sisters are properly tended when they come home from war.

Tammy also reports a recurring dream. She's in Iraq, in a Black Hawk or doing desk duty. She realizes that she is dreaming, and she knows that in her dream, she has legs. She often dream-thinks, "Oh, I have legs. Cool. I'm going to get up and run around."

Duckwork embodies Gratitude. Of course, she's not happy to have lost her legs. But she feels Gratitude for having the compassion, the opportunity, and the life force available so that her mission may be more authentically and fully accomplished. And interestingly she feels Gratitude to have "dream legs" that allow her to get up and run around in the invisible realms.

Gratitude is not a mood or a temporary state of mind. Gratitude is a way of life.

Gratitude is the principle I find to be most recognizable in my clients. People who have it in their garments demonstrate the "attitude of Gratitude" in their daily lives. It comes naturally, whether they have plenty or they have little, to simply be in a state of thankfulness for life as it comes to them.

These spiritual principles are self-perpetuating. Gratitude is probably the most self-perpetuating of them all. When you embody Gratitude, destiny seems to align itself so that you are given more and more for which to be in Gratitude. Because you appreciate what you have, more shows up to be appreciated. If you only appreciate (give attention to) what you do not have, the universe assumes that you like not having and obliges. It's simple; it's powerful.

My son's primary principle is Gratitude. "Thank you" are probably the most spoken words of his life. Often we'll just be sitting quietly as we drive down a street or enjoy a meal and he'll just look at me and say, "Thank you, Mom." "For what?" I always ask, as if I need to have done something to deserve the words. "For everything," he responds simply.

When it came time for him to write his college essay, the topic for his first-choice school was: Describe a time when you faced adversity and explain how you dealt with it. He struggled with this. He wrote a few sentences about a disappointing grade point one year followed by a "bad" baseball season, which he thought had destroyed his chances to play baseball in college. Then he changed directions altogether. With his permission, I share these words:

Honestly I have never faced real tear-dropping adversity. I had a 3.2 GPA one year and I had a difficult baseball season the next, but these setbacks are embarrassingly minor. My best friend's father deserted his wife and six children when my friend was only 13 years old. Most of my other friends come from broken homes and have horrible, dishonest relationships with their parents. I have played baseball outside of school with kids who know real adversity. One talented player's father died just before his senior year in high school, and he flunked out of school that year. Another teammate's dad (our travel team coach) was arrested for drug possession mid-season. The suffering I've seen on my friends' faces touches me deeply. In an odd way, being around these situations has taught me more about adversity than my own circumstances.

Watching the adversity in the lives of my friends brings deep gratitude for my parent's support and my awesome life.

He got accepted. And he's playing college baseball in one of the best baseball programs in the country. Destiny brought him more for which to be in Gratitude.

© Connie Kaplan, 2007

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