Some thoughts on gratitude

This time of year always evokes a multitude of frankly weird emotions in me.

At this moment I am watching BBC News and the headline was about some miners in New Zealand. Because I love many things about New Zealand, including everyone I have ever met, this makes me sad. A second explosion has left no survivors. While the world rejoiced when the Chilean miners emerged from their temporary crypt, there will be no such celebration in New Zealand. Another story is about Ireland’s horrible economic forecast, with all the cuts in public and social services. It is truly sad to comprehend that in so many local areas, not just in my own country, so many people are facing economic – and by extension, psychosocial – depression. The news is not good. And it is not good from anywhere.

Today I worked on getting some new hires trained, and dealt with an “old hire” – a current employee who seems bent on not doing what I ask. This seems to be a pattern. It makes me think that I have exhausted my ability to make a difference there.
And then I come home. The BBC News lets me know that things are touch all over. More stories. Demonstrations in the street in London. Death toll in Cambodia by stampede now over 450 persons. Persons who may have had hope, may have thought they could make difference.

Tara greets me with a hug, shrieking, “Mommy!” She traipses through the house in her old princess dress, and tells me she has tried raisins, and likes them, but not from a box. She tells me she has had a long day, and demonstrates how her toes can hold a pencil just like her fingers do. No matter how dark the news, no matter how bleak the freezing rain outside is, Tara can bring light and balance to my perspective. Kind of like her namesake. The female Buddha, Tara.

So gratitude. Here’s my take. I am grateful for having an open mind, a worldview that allows me to see others with compassion at times, knowing that I would be better served with more compassion. A perspective that gives me the ability to see the injustice in the world, and a mind that can sometimes trap and release words that allow others to understand these injustice in a more personal and meaningful way. A mindset that allows me to seek the spirit and not get mired in dogma. And finally, a intrinsic happiness that enables me to gain some small saving joy from little sillinesses in each day with my fellow human beings.

May your Thanksgiving be what you need to it to be to bring more enlightenment into your world.