How the elder loved nature! He loved it in three different ways: as angels, children, and sages love it. When he walked through the forest with us, we felt the power of his prayers. It was as though ranks of angels surrounded us. The elder said very little in the midst of nature, but if he did say something, then it was with such child-like joy and simplicity that his earthly age disappeared. Nature for the elder was a book of the holy revelations of God.
Gardens are spaces of inhabiting in which we are entrusted with the very continuity of life itself. Our job is not to oversee or control, but to plant, prune, water, feed and encourage growth. We either make of the garden a verdant refreshing oasis or a desert, stripped of nutrients and barren of new life.
Peacemaking is a call that has been discerned when our garden's ripeness shows that we have learned that we inhabit one great garden, our earth, when we have learned that we are but one interwoven fabric of created life charged with mutual and tender cultivation by the One who gave and gives us life.
Gratitude helps you to be receptive to the life force of the universe. Being appreciative empowers and strengthens you... If you have been praying for help and guidance and no one seems to be listening, start being thankful. Let go of your prayers for what you want and immerse yourself in thankfulness for what you have. When you are thankful, it is inevitable that you will gain in wisdom and inner strength.
Thanks for the sympathies
that you have shown!
Thanks for each kindly word,
each silent token,
That reaches me, when
seeming most alone.
Friends are around us, though
no word be spoken.
Since love and truth are the cornerstones of life and since they are but other names for praise and thanksgiving, it follows that praise and thanksgiving are important components of prayer. This is because prayer in its truest form is an alignment between the spiritual self of each of us with the spiritual Power that defies human understanding.
I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, kindness from the unkind. I am grateful.
Notice that the more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are the victim of resentment, depression, and despair. Gratitude will act as an elixir that will gradually dissolve the hard shell of your ego -- your need to possess and control -- and transform you into a generous being. The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous -- large-souled.
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 not have 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.
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.
The power of appreciation comes through actions. Feeling gratitude creates a wonderful internal experience; expressing it allows us to feel the full bloom of appreciation. Most significant would be our willingness on a moment-to-moment basis to find some aspect of every person and event to appreciate and then find a tangible way to express our gratitude.