By Sister Mary Scholastica, O.C.D.
If you blink, you’ll miss something that just made our world change.
Think about yesterday, last week, last month, last year. Doesn’t it seem like the change around us is accelerating? It might also be coupled with the fact that as we get older, we start to see and experience the brevity of life. The days start galloping ahead a bit faster and somehow this makes us feel more uneasy, reminding us that we have no control, regardless of how much we’d like to have it.
Reflect on how quickly news changes. What’s “in” changes from one day to the next. Quickly. People who were famous yesterday are barely remembered today. Gadgets and gizmos (that’s my favorite word for things that I don’t know the name of!) are “in” today and “out” tomorrow. If you look at the headlines, the rapidity of change of what is “headline news” is hard to follow because the truly shocking content is minimized by the constant change. Projects and circumstances, struggles in relationships you have labored over, cried over, struggled over years ago….here today, gone tomorrow. Do you remember them all? Probably not. It’s all passing. It really is.
This reflection is not for the purpose of being a “downer”. It’s simply a reminder of the passing quality of so many things in life. When you reflect in this way, it reminds you to land on that which perseveres through time and stays grounded through the howling winds of change. Reflect on the things that last. Reflect on that which is never “in” nor “out”. It’s steady, rooted, something that makes a lasting impact.
Gratitude is ALWAYS “in”. In order to stay steady moving into the future, we need to take a good hard look at what is important to us and our perspective on life. Otherwise, we move with the changing tides. The lens of gratitude has the ability to be the mortar that helps form and support the solid foundation we seek to build upon.
Gratitude lifts you into a space that is beyond you.
Gratitude means that you are looking forward even as you are looking backward.
Gratitude can only come from a place within.
You realize it’s not about you and somehow God is in all things and somehow God is bringing some good out of you and your surroundings. He is using you to lift others up around you. He is using you to be a light and sometimes He is asking you to turn on the light in a darkened room. Someone who lives in this spirit moves fully in the present moment and somehow makes this world a better place. It’s a grounding presence. It’s a person you and I want to be around because then the world makes more sense.
Today, especially during this month of November and into every day of the future, strive to be someone who lives with a grateful heart and has an outlook that sees God’s hand at work everywhere in all the moments of life. Remember, gratitude is ALWAYS “in”.
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This post was originally published on the website of the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles and is reprinted here with permission.
Image: Depositphotos
