The Spiritual Work of Gratitude

"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God." Henry Nouwan

In reflecting on this, my father's death brought me to the realization that one could find faith and if my Dad could maybe I could too. Later, my mother's experience with her alcoholism and diagnosis of Korsakoff's sydrome was the beginning of the end of my drinking. I could no longer deny that I too was an alcoholic. The loss of my parents (and yes I consider that I have lost my mother, not physically, but emotionally) were devasting moments for me but I have come to believe that these were God moments for me. A spiritual 2x4 if you will.

Recently I attended a retreat and there was a reconciliation service. We were to write our "sins" on a piece of paper and then bring them to the priest who if you were Catholic would absolve you or whatever they do and if not he would give you a blessing and then they burn the paper. I wrote the biggest stuff that I have learned from my fourth step. There were 2 priests that you had to get in line for. My whole group went to the priest on the left. For some reason I went to the one on the right. The whole time I am in line I'm thinking to myself he's going to read this and say "You're f*%ked!". And you know what he kind of did. I am told the other priest was also in recovery and he shared that and told people that they had taked a big step by sharing their paper, etc., etc. My priest read my paper, burned it and then said..."That's some pretty heavy stuff. Are you in counseling?" Among a few other things. I couldn't even hear his blessing. Something about I was the lamb on the shephard's shoulders, blah, blah, blah. I was pretty devastated actually. But in reflecting about this, while I didn't get what I wanted or expected, perhaps this was God's way of gently pushing me in a direction I had been contemplating. Perhaps I got what I needed. I had talked to my sponser about therapy. She had given me a card of a therapist in the program. And I had been carrying it around never making the call. So now this is no longer devasting, it is another God moment to be grateful for. Would I have rather been patted on the back? Yes. But apparently that is not what I needed. Still don't like the priest so much but that's another issue:)