Gratitude As A Discipline

A pair of theologians to start things off today. Karl Barth wrote “Joy is really the simplest form of gratitude.”

By contrast Henri Nouwen noted that “Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint.”

I’m not sure, but I think I disagree with Barth, because I have this notion that there is an intention which creates gratitude and that it isn’t quite enough to just feel joy. I like Nouwen’s expression “gratitude as a discipline.” I don’t know, or can’t remember, if I’ve ever said it quite that way. I’m seeking both the discipline (whether you feel it or not) and also the feeling (having it, living inside of it and having the humbling gift of it) as often, and for as long as, I can.

I’m also thinking of CS Lewis’s Reflections on the Psalms. He wrote “I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously flows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise–lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet…Praise of weather, wines…”

I’d like to think that gratitude flows like that from joy, too, but I’m not sure it always does.

You have to create space for gratitude and sometimes it seems there’s not much to say. You just look around and say something. If you keep doing this day after day after day after day, day after unending, unforgiving calendar day, you have to write something, you have to write your way into the day, write your way into gratitude.

Sometimes it’s going to be about skunks and U-Haul trailers and garbage on the street because how many days in a row can you feel something about “thanks for the coffee, thanks for the shower, thanks for a full refrigerator, thanks for the keys to a house and the fact that I was born in the United States into unbelievable abundance and privilege.” I mean on and on and on, the everyday blessings. You list them and list them and list them and you just keep listing them.

And after you’ve listed as many things as you can, the next day comes around and you have to start all over again. So keeping the journal, as a writing practice, keeping the door open, is akin to keeping space open in your life for gratitude, whether you “feel like it” or not. It’s about not giving in to how you feel, just writing anyway, and how it’s no different than punching in at work or going for a run or going for a swim or working on Spanish.

These feelings are seductive, like the Sirens calling to Odysseus, and I need to bind myself to the mast. Of course he planned ahead too, knowing that would happen, just like we planned ahead for objective hazards like avalanches on Denali and then made a compact with the mountain gods and started climbing anyway. Sometimes you still have to gut it out and suck it up no matter how prepared. Keep reaching through that gauzy film and go punch in at work, go write anyway, ask what there is to be grateful for no matter what you’re looking at.

There’s a journey here, that’s obvious, a pack to be shouldered every day, living into questions without immediate answers and living into gratefulness.