Being Grateful Isn't Always Easy

Also: a moment of Zen for the ages

Before we begin…

How easy has it been for you to express gratitude in your life? Or, think about this last week – was there someone or something, or perhaps an experience that inspires gratitude when you look back on it? If someone said to you, “Gratitude is the most short-lived of human emotions,” how would you respond? 

Welcome! You’ve reached Spark.  Learn more here or just read on. If you received this from a friend, please join us by subscribing. It’s free! All you have to do is press the button below. If you have already subscribed, welcome back! BTW, If this email looks truncated in your inbox, just click through now so you can read it all in one go. 

Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash (Thankful)

What would you say?

Imagine this: we’re all sitting around a giant table loaded with platters of food or perhaps we are gathered in the center of a giant library surrounded by books. Our fingers are itching to grab a fork or stroke the spine of a novel we’ve always wanted to read when someone says, “Let’s all say one thing we are grateful for.” 

I wonder if there would be an awkward pause, or a collective groan like the one that traveled around the holiday table back when my huge extended, blended family gathered for Thanksgiving and my mother uttered those words for the first time. There we were, sitting shoulder to shoulder with people we grew up with, just met, loved, liked, or maybe loathed a little and feeling suddenly very vulnerable. 

Or at least I did. Sometimes I still do. Gratitude is something I am still practicing. A person very close to me often says, “Gratitude is the most short-lived of human emotions.” I feel both sad and irritated when he says this because there is a tiny grain of truth in it. I have been overcome by gratitude, awash in a feeling of grace for the sudden unexpected gift of friendship, or the right word at the right time from a total stranger. I have received money when I was in a hole of my own making. In other words, I have had many reasons to feel grateful over my adult life. It’s shocking, though, how difficult it is to sustain my sense of gratitude. 

“Gratitude is the most short-lived of human emotions.” - an old and very close friend who I think may be wrong. At least I hope so.

I have come to see that it doesn’t matter what the other person’s agenda may or may not be. I’ve learned that if I can’t immediately see the value in a moment or an offering, I can still see the impulse or the love that offered it. I’ve learned, too, to “fake it until I make it” and I almost always do make it. 

I’m sorry, none of this is terribly profound and it certainly isn’t something you don’t already know. If we grow up at all, we learn that gratitude is something that, like every other thing that makes us better humans, takes practice. When I think back to that first time when my mother almost shyly suggested that her big, unruly, loud family pause and acknowledge at least one thing we were thankful for, I understand that she was offering a way to practice gratitude. Or maybe she was sick of making those giant meals and then seeing them end so quickly in a rush of noise and lip-smacking. What I remember was how the initial awkwardness fell away as one person went, then another. Someone mentioned the food. Another mentioned a job. Another offered his gratitude for his sobriety. Others made jokes. The tenor of the evening shifted to something softer, gentler, and I felt more connected with everyone there. I don’t remember what I said then or in later years but I do remember how changed I felt after I acknowledged my gratitude and then shared it. 

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

So, imagine again that big table or big room and that all of us in this community are shoulder to shoulder. What is one thing that you are grateful for? Or, if you are struggling to feel grateful, tell us about that. If you know a writer or a book or a piece of any kind of art that has helped you understand what you are grateful for, please share it. 

Here’s mine: I am grateful for what I’m learning here. I am grateful for the encouragement, book suggestions, contributions, and the possibilities that I have yet to explore. I am grateful for the opportunity to grow as a writer in front of you and to read more closely. I am grateful for the opportunity to mess up and the ease with which you accept whatever I can manage in a given week. 

Thank you. 

Next Week and Beyond

We will not publish next week so we can all enjoy the long weekend. Then we will have three newsletters in December before signing off until the first of the year. At least one of those will be dedicated to our end of year book lists so think about the top five books you’ve read this year. And let me know which books you want to read most between now and the end of the year. 

If you’ve got book photos, send ‘em! I’d really like to start a regular feature showing our “bookstacks” defined however you want – TBR, Just Read, Library Haul, or random books that found each other in the corner of your home. Send photos to elizabethmarro@substack.com. 

Welcome New Subscribers!

Welcome to you new folks from over on Mastadon, here on Substack, and who have found Spark this week thanks to a friend. Thank you all for being here. If you would like to check out past issues, here’s a quick link to the archives. Be sure to check out our Resources for Readers and Writers too. And help us spread the word by sharing Spark with your friends. Oh, you can find most of the books discussed here on the Spark Community Recommendations Page of bookshop.org where each sale supports local bookstores and generates a commission that right now is too small to even mention but if it ever gets any bigger, we will decide how to spend it together.

That’s it for this week. Let me know how you are and what you’re reading. If there’s an idea, book, or question you’d like to see in an upcoming issue of Spark, let us know! Use the comment button below or just hit reply to this email and send your message directly. 

And remember, If you like what you see or it resonates with you, please share Spark with a friend and take a minute to click the heart ❤️ below - it helps more folks to find us!

Ciao for now.

Gratefully (always),

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…I defy you to watch this and not just melt into the moment

“A minute of play can brighten your day,” writes David Abrams, author of Fobbit and Brave Deeds, and incurable cat lover. Abrams and his wife Jean brought Biscuit home last August when the Helena Humane Society was desperately in need of foster homes. Biscuit and her kittens became stars on Facebook as we all watched their stories unfold under the expert care of David’s wife, Jean, and the lens of David’s camera. The storytelling with each photo played a critical role in helping Biscuit’s kittens, each named for a fruit, find their forever homes. Now Biscuit is the only one waiting for a new home and shares space with another foster, Finn. Judging by this video, she’s not in a hurry. David writes: 

“Biscuit is finding her Inner Kitten this week as she spends more time with Finn in the basement. At first, she was a little standoffish ….but gradually Biscuit has let her guard down and tapped into the joy of romping, leaping and rolling. It’s a reminder of just how very young Biscuit is: “babies having babies.”

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!