Gratitude: A Cure for Worry

Poster by Rev. Gerald Mendoza


Monday of Easter 2 2014  Gratitude a Cure for Worry


"Jesus said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!  And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."  Luke 12:22-24,29-31

In 1998, the whistler Bobby McFerrin came out with an odd song titled, Don't worry, be happy.  He was onto something.  One of the most important cures for worry is a mindful sense of  gratitude.  It has been truly said that anxiety can be reduced to fear of not getting what we want, or losing what we have?  But there is a third, non-bipolar, non-dualistic way: contentment arising out of gratitude for what we have.  

Something profound and transformative happens when we give thanks and live our lives in gratitude to God and to one another. And if we make a lifelong practice of it, it fundamentally shifts the way we view the world. Worry and anxiety are rooted in fear, scarcity and isolation. Gratitude is rooted in love, abundance and connection.  In the act of giving thanks, I have shown you my cards. I have shown you what I value and where I am vulnerable. When I say thank you, I say I am not enough on my own and that I need you.

When I say thank you, I say without shame that I could not have made it by myself, that I reject the myth of the self-made man who must pull himself up by his bootstraps unaided.This is grace. It recognizes, admits, and embraces our incompleteness, our utter, beautiful and holy dependence on each other and on God.

Witnessing the Wonder 

by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

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Prayer is our humble answer 

to the inconceivable surprise of living. 

It is all we can offer in return 

for the mystery by which we live. 

Amidst the meditation of mountains, 

the humility of flowers

— wiser than all alphabets — 

clouds that die constantly 

for the sake of God’s glory, 

we are hating, hunting, hurting. 

Suddenly we feel ashamed 

of our clashes and complaints

in face of the tacit glory in nature. 

It is embarrassing to live!

How strange we are in the world, 

and how presumptuous our doings! 

Only one response can maintain us: 

gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, 

for the gift of our unearned right to serve,

to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness 

which makes the soul great.