I am currently reading One Thousand Gifts. It is the story of a farmer's wife who has experienced tragedy, but also a pleasant existence. It is her journey towards a full, meaningful life.
She finds that the key is gratitude - the New Testament repeatedly uses, "take" or "took" and then, "eucharisteo", to give thanks. Part of receiving the fulness of God's blessing is being thankful. She also learns that Jesus gives thanks before multiplying the fishes and loaves. Thankfulness produces multiplicity. She begins a challenge of listing 1,000 things to be thankful for, and continues her study. After her journal is completed, she continues to stop in wonder. It's a breathtaking, beautiful book, and I knew if I didn't blog about it know, it would be forever long when I did. So, 4 chapters in, I take a breath.
Here are some excerpts:
"How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?"
"Is this the toxic air of the world, this atmosphere we inhale, burning into our lungs, this, 'No, God? No, God, we won't take what You give. No, God, Your plans are a gutted, bleeding mess and I didn't sign up for this and You really thought I'd go for this? No, God, this is ugly and this is a mess and can't You get anything right and just haul all this pain out of here and I'll take it from here, thanks. And God? Thanks for nothing.' Isn't this the human inheritance, the legacy of the Garden?...I believe the Serpent's hissing lie, the repeating refrain of his campaign through the ages: God isn't good. It's the cornerstone of his movement".
"Satan, he wanted more. More power, more glory. Ultimately, in his essence, Satan is an ingrate. And he sinks his venom into the heart of Eden."
"Standing before that tree, laden with fruit withheld, we listen to Evil's murmur, 'In the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened...'(Genesis 3:5). But in the beginning, our eyes were already open. Our sight was perfect. Our vision let us see a world spilling with goodness. Our eyes fell on nothing but the glory of God. We saw God as He truly is: good. But we were lured by the deception that there was more to a full life, there was more to see. And true, there was more to see: the ugliness we hadn't beheld, the sinfulness we hadn't witnessed, the loss we hadn't known. We eat. And in an instant, we are blind. No longer do we see God as one we can trust. No longer do we perceive Him as wholly good. No longer do we observe all of the remaining paradise. We eat. And in an instant, we see. Everywhere we look, we see a world of lack, a universe of loss, a cosmos of scarcity and injustice"
This passage is hard to type, because the tears flow freely. I just think of how Adam and Eve really knew God - they tasted and walked with His goodness. And even though good was before them, walking among them, they still wanted the other, the evil. That's so sad. And then of course, I think of all that it would take to bring us back to that state, of truly knowing God and all His goodness. Doesn't it break your heart?
"I hunger for filling in a world that is starved."
"Eat the mystery"
"Isn't it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur?"
"Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo - the table of thanksgiving I sit there long...wondering...is it that simple? Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?"
"Jesus didn't institute the Eucharist around some unusual, rare, once a year event, but around this continual act of eating a slice of bread, drinking a cup of fruit from the vine. First Corinthians 11:26 reads, 'whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup' - whenever. Like every day. Whenever we eat."
"Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy."
"What will a life magnify? The world's stress cracks, the grubbiness of a day, all that is wholly wrong and terribly busted? Or God?"
"In Christ, don't we have everlasting existence? Don't Christians have all the time in eternity, life everlasting? If Christians run out of time - wouldn't we lose our very own existence? If anyone should have time, isn't it the Christ-followers?"
"I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry."
"I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away. In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives."
"Hurry always empties a soul."
"I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows. Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole time's river slows, slows, slows."
"Full attention fills the empty ache."
"Thanks makes now a sanctuary."
"The clock ticks slow. I hear it for what it is: good and holy. Time, what God first deemed holy above all else (Genesis 2:3). Thank God for the time, and very God enters that time, presence hallowing it. True, this, full attention slows time and I live the full of the moment, right to outer edges. But there's more. I awake to I AM here. When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. In HIs embrace, time loses all sense of spend stress and space and stands so still and...holy"
"The real problem of life is never a lack of time. The real problem of life - in my life - is lack of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying happens when I give thanks - take the just one loaf, say it is enough, and give thanks - and He miraculously makes it more than enough."
"Life is brief and fleeting but it is not an emergency"
"When did I stop thinking life was dessert?"
I want to not just read this book, but to live it. So, I have decided to have a wall of gratitude. Every day, I will add to the wall behind my head so that when I walk in to my room, I will see it. I want a wall full of even the little things to be thankful for. I want to see it, and to remember that I have more than enough reasons to be thankful.
I will try to keep you posted as the wall is filled.
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