Radical Thanks (with Guided Practice!)

by Sara Flitner

Conversation in the “public square” feels stuck on repeat. After our prolonged exposure to conflict, violence, and a constant stream of stories about the terrible ways people can harm one another, the fatigue is real. 

I went for a walk with a friend who has gone on a “news fast.” She’s been volunteering for a few local organizations and carries herself with much more lightness than I’ve been seeing amidst my usual coffee shop crowd. 

“What’s going on with you?” I asked, hoping she had a new tip. 

“I’m just so grateful for what I have,” she said. “That’s where I put my focus.” 

She began naming simple things: birdsong, a body that can hug, see, hear, and move. We kept adding to the list—friendship, pink clouds whispering across the sky, golden aspen leaves carpeting the trail, people who made us laugh or think or feel loved. The perfect light puffy jacket. People who want to grow forward, “falling upward,” as Fr. Richard Rohr describes it. 

I finished the last mile of the walk alone, and with each step I found myself repeating: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thankyouthankyouthankyou.” All week since, gratitude has arisen unbidden. Quietly, under my breath, “Thank you,” keeps surfacing as I notice beauty and connection constantly available—where I least expect it, where I’m not otherwise looking for it, where I’m not even sure I want to see it. This awareness expands my capacity, reframing the fear that contracts my reason, my strength, and—worst of all—my heart. 

Before hard things can be transformed into good—or even just less hard—they must first be seen and felt. Pretending otherwise, or papering over pain with false positivity (or rumination or denial), is not the call.  

So I invite all of us to make thanks-giving our practice. To use connection to nature, to others, to pets, or simply to ourselves, to expand awareness. We can choose to dwell in gratitude—not as a way of avoiding reality, but as an act of rebellion. We can let it remind us to trust the basic dignity in people, to see that fear is taught. We can reach for the ability to direct our attention, and to place it on what is sacred when we open the aperture wide enough to see it. 

Durable change demands that we listen better, but that is hard work and it won’t happen if we are shut down. Most of us will not radically shift our values or opinions, but if we refuse to look for connection—to feel it—we risk contracting until we can’t feel much of anything. Until we no longer feel human. 

Sara offered this guided meditation in our (free!) FRIDAY COMMUNITY ZOOM PRACTICE. Join us FRIDAYS at 8AM MT! DETAILS HERE.