"In non-European religious communities, the emotions of gratitude serve as the foundation of personal resilience and joy, as a soulful pathway to the truest kinds of freedom and liberation. Gratitude can be experienced by anyone, anywhere, without permission and without restraint. No external master can either release or inhibit thanksgiving. Gratitude is, perhaps, the most immediate and most primal of all spiritual affections - one that makes every human being a priest. Feeling grateful empowers the soul." Grateful, by Diana Butler Bass, pg. 34.
We just finished our annual meeting and I could not help feeling grateful for First Lutheran Church and her work here in Bothell. As I gave my last thoughts on the day to those gathered I could not help reflect on what we had accomplished over the last year. We gave away over 12% of our budget to the church at large and to our community social programs. We gathered for worship every Sunday of the year and never forgot to pray for our world, our elected officials, and for each other. We witnessed baptisms, confirmations, marriages and funerals and in doing so we lifted up those in prayer and blessing. The countless little things we have done that helps God's promised and preferred world come into being. Yes, I could not help but feel grateful.
For many in our neighborhood, though, the opportunity to be held up in community has been taken away from them. Whether they are LGBTQ, an immigrant, or perhaps made a grave mistake in their lives, many have been forced out of their faith communities; many have been excluded from the very communities they relied on for support and now find themselves abandoned. My gratitude is tempered by the knowledge that there is always more to do.
But, it is important though to hang on to gratitude as a place to begin our work together. For if we begin our work from a sense of fear or worry or pessimism or scarcity we will not fully be present. What I mean is that we will hold ourselves back from the other and not fully learn about them, not fully give them room to be who they are - created by God. If we begin from a place of thanksgiving we understand that all that we have is of God and therefore should be dedicated to health and wellbeing of those amongst us.
Our Vision Team is in the midst of authoring a document that we hope will help us live more fully into our call from God. The team recognizes that what we have bean is the foundation of our work, but the times are changing and challenging us to rethink how we continue to be a blessing to our neighbors. It is abundantly clear that one of the clues is embedded in this idea of learning more about what it means to be a people of abundance, a people of gratitude for all that God has created us to be.
Practice this month recognizing those times you are grateful and acknowledge that in prayer. In doing so we can learn to open ourselves more to the preferred and promise future God has waiting for us and making room for those marginalized in our neighborhood. Let us become that safe place for all of God's children.
