GRATITUDE is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an "accident", but a divine choice. It is important to realize how often we have had chances to be grateful and have not used them. When someone is kind to us, when an event turns out well, when a problem is solved, a relationship restored, a wound healed, these are very concrete reasons to offer thanks... When we keep claiming the light, we will find ourselves becoming more and more radiant. What fascinates me so much is that every time we decide to be grateful, it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.
Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.
~ from THE ETERNAL NOW by Paul Johannes Tillich, thanks to Liz Stewart
God is creatively present in everyone in every moment whether we are aware of it or not. But when we are in the state of silent gratefulness, we are aware of God's Presence.
Sometimes at the momet of despair, a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted," accepted by that which is great than you.
We realize ourselves, when we discover God. We discover a reality that is identical to ourselves, although a realm that transcends us infinitely ... a reality from which we are estranged, but from which we can never be separated ... In reality, in our search to know God, we realize our true selves.
