David Steindl-Rast is not a well-known writer in the UK but his book Gratefulness is the best I’ve read on this topic. He shares a childhood experience, surviving bombing raids in Nazi-occupied Austria:
“…Unable to find an air-raid shelter quickly, I rushed into a church only a few steps away. To shield myself from shattered glass and falling debris, I crawled under a pew … I felt sure that the vaulted ceiling would cave in any moment and bury me alive…A steady tone of the siren announced the danger was over … And there I was, stepping out into a glorious May morning … My eyes fell on a few square feet of lawn in the midst of all this destruction. It was as if a friend had offered me an emerald in the hollow of his hand. Never before or after have I seen grass so surprisingly green.”
p.10
Recently I was commuting to work on a quiet spring morning, and I passed the most extraordinary scene shown in the photograph. You do not always need a near-death experience to feel gratitude! But how many people drove out of Shrewsbury that morning and did not stop to gaze in awe at the sunrise?
Mist was rolling mysteriously down the river. The trees were silhouetted. And a bright March sun illuminated the whole scene, rising over The Wrekin.
Brother David Stendl-Rast helped to set up a beautiful website devoted to gratefulness, and you can visit it here.
And look out for those surprising moments that fill our hearts with gratitude!
Lif4Gd 