New Birth, Needed Gratitude, and Celebrations!

Spoiler alert! Short post tonight! Why? Primarily because so much has been written about gratitude and thanksgiving, I feel I have nothing new to add. However, the feeling and expression of gratitude never grows old or trite.

My gratitude today was fueled by an early morning text from a young friend of mine. His wife, also my friend, was in labor and several hours later they had their second child. Babies always elicit thanksgiving from me, and I felt privileged that he would even let me know when they were on the way to the hospital. I had the same feeling when my own grandchildren were born, except, of course, I got to be there for their births — or shortly thereafter. (Not all of them because three were born in LA!).

I thought about gratitude this morning, especially after the morning I had yesterday, one fraught with ego reactions to things. It wasn’t that bad, honestly, because the longer I walk in the fellowship of the Heart, the more I recognize and adjust to such times. They are good growing experiences, strengthening exercises. They are very real, too, so I was ready for some good news today.

And good news produces celebration, and celebrations — large or tiny — produce thanksgiving and gratitude. To me, celebrations are the positive keys to gratitude. I’ve heard a lot of folks take the negative position to create a forced response, one I have never much cared for but have used at times because sometimes it may be the best we can muster. You know those sayings like At least I’m not as bad off as they are — that variety of sentiment. I’d rather find tiny things to celebrate.

And when I do, I celebrate aloud. It may be quietly, or it may be loud over something small or something large but always significant. Those exuberant exhalations of gratitude — at times directed to those who produced the reason for thanksgiving, at times to the Spirit of all — reverberate throughout the Universe and add positive energy around me that flows freely. Yep, that’s an attitude of gratitude, and it’s not a mark of pride, but a need of my soul.

​Thank you, my young friends, for including me in your joyful news this morning! Thank you, Spirit, for the way life is created and the ever-abundant evidence of you in each of us, especially babies!