Gratitude, An Enlightened Perspective

You have made me so rich, oh God, please let me share out Your beauty with open hands. My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with You, oh God, one great dialogue. Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on Your earth, my eyes raised toward Your Heaven, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of deep emotion and gratitude. At night, too, when I lie in my bed and rest in You, oh God, tears of gratitude run down my face, and that is my prayer.

You may not recognize the author of these words, and I would dare say that few of us would be able to come close to guessing the circumstances under which the writer found herself overflowing with praise and gratitude to her Creator.

You might guess that these worshipful exclamations might have flowed from an open, praise-filled heart of one who had reached a state of deep gratefulness for a life overflowing with profound blessings.  Not so. These are the words of Etty Hillesum.

Etty was a 27-year-old Jewish woman living in Amsterdam in 1941. At a time when the Nazi takeover was rousing terror among Dutch Jews, Etty Hillesum underwent an amazing inner transformation in the direction of freedom and joy. By April of 1942 Jews were forced to wear the Star of David, and the wholesale deportation began later that spring. Finally in August 1942 she was consigned with her family to an internment camp, from which Jews were deported to Auschwitz on a weekly basis. Etty stayed in the camp until September 1943. In the midst of the squalor, the confinement, the fear, she praised God for life, for beauty, for the secure refuge of her soul. Amazingly, her prayers in these last days of her life in the prison camp were lavish expressions of gratitude.

Etty's spirit continued to burn brightly even to the very end. She stepped onto the deportation train "talking gaily, smiling, a kind word for everyone she met on the way, full of sparkling humor, perhaps just a touch of sadness," as the chronicler of her last day in the camp describes. Later, some farmers along the train route discovered a postcard she had thrown out of the train. "We have left the camp singing," it said. Etty Hillesum died in Auschwitz on November 30, 1943 ((from Judith Smith's book review of An Interrupted Life-The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 translated by J.G. Gaarlandt)

How many of us can muster an attitude of gratitude in the midst of life's great challenges? When faced with great difficulty, seeing the good and giving thanks is a high bar for our consciousness to achieve. Why is this so?  The answer is embedded in Etty's response to her life situation.  Her faith was not derailed by adversity but driven deeper within her, where blessings and grace, presence and comfort were found overflowing. She refused to deny the existence of the Divine or even entertain the slightest diminution of good in the worst of human conditions. The Apostle Paul said "in all things, give thanks." Notice he didn't say "for" all things give thanks, but "in" all things be grateful.  This is the master's way of dealing with life; to remain resolute in awareness of Divine presence, and never let what happens in the world betray our faith.

Omnipresence is a lovely, lofty word to describe the absolute assurance that God is never absent anywhere in our wonderful and dangerous world. However, to bear witness to that promise and feel it at a soul level when a train of difficulty comes for us, takes enormous vision; an enlightened perspective.  I've tasted those sweet moments a few rare times in my life and know it is possible to stand in the storm and be glad and grateful even before the trouble has passed. Ultimately we can only get there if we trust that difficulty and challenge are not against us, rather seen as allies on the path that strip us of falsehoods only to reveal our bare naked, eternal, true selves.

As Henri Nouwen has written, gratitude is a discipline, "because it challenges me to face the painful moments and gradually to discover in them the pruning hands of God purifying my heart for deeper love, stronger hope, and broader faith.... "

Freedom: A God Given Choice

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. - Jesus

When we think of freedom as citizens of a democracy our thought goes to those hard won rights that launched this independent nation.  We enjoy many human freedoms that for so many people around the globe are only frustrated impulses for self-determination. Here we are free to live where we want, move about without restriction, free to vote in open elections, free to speak our mind and decide on issues and leaders that affect our lives. Freedom of choice rules in the marketplace, where there is such a smorgasbord of choices that selecting a tube of toothpaste can be a dizzying exercise of free will.  This is cause for recognition, grounds for profound appreciation, and most definitely calls for the annual, if not more frequent, pause to celebrate the life and liberty we enjoy in this country.

That's all good. However, if that's as far as we go, are we truly free? I would suggest that we are not truly free no matter how many civil liberties we enjoy, unless we free our minds and our hearts as well.

We may have the right to "pursue happiness" but a right does not guarantee that we'll experience happiness. We can set up the foundations for a free society and guidelines to protect its liberties, yet no law or external mandate can liberate the mind and heart that is imprisoned by fear, locked in guilt, shackled by shame, or buried in resentment.   Such freedom is wrought only through the inner work of each individual citizen who chooses to take up their individual cause for personal liberty.

In every moment, of every day, we come up against the headwinds of circumstances that threaten to derail our sense of well-being. If the set point for our well-being is aligned with our preferences for life, then we will find ourselves shackled by unhappiness most of the time. As Jesus and Buddha both noted, our human journey will be riddled with trials and sorrows, along with joys, and that there is an overcoming power within us that can remain free from suffering through all that arises.

We relinquish our inner freedom, and suffer, when we see ourselves only in partial truth, as mere mortals, at the mercy of circumstances and other people's opinion.  This identity crisis underlies the pain I feel in this world of appearances. But there is a greater truth about you and me.  Jesus said you are the light of the world; that heaven resides within you, and St. Paul said you live and move and have your very being in God. The Buddha said our true nature transcends suffering, and that well-being is possible regardless of circumstances.

Let these perennial teachings remind you that there is a path to true freedom. It is a spiritual path that turns our attention from the outer conditions that might restrain us, and illuminates the inner chambers of the heart and mind that are spacious, compassionate and bear all things with equanimity. May we also remember that democracy was (and is) a work in progress that was not fully formed by a declaration of independence but by the trials and errors along a path toward full realization. May we see our journey to freedom with equal understanding and patience with the process. This is the nature of spiritual growth, the ongoing and progressive realization of our true spiritual nature, that yields an ever-widening view of the you/me that God created us to be.

In the faith that frees,

Rev. Larry