Gratitude has gripped my mind and heart.

The whole of life:

The continuous journey;

The following of others gone before,

The following of those in the lead,

The keeping step with those at my side,

The helping hand that reaches out,

Those behind who challenge me to lead;

Who challenge me to make ready the way;

For those who choose to join the journey,

For those who cry out from the wayside,

Cry out, reaching for help,

Help to know the way, to see further than today,

With hungry bodies, hungry minds, hungry hearts.

Gratitude has gripped my mind and heart.  It seems my entire life journey has been one of gifts starting with my family’s embrace of love that keeps being there for me.  I have lately finished some classes in Scripture and Spirituality.  It has been an eye opener with regard to taking these online. I thought I had a handle on the use of computer, however, things keep popping up, I didn’t know as much as I thought I did.  This sharpened my awareness and brought into my present view the discovery of the many gifts of others, especially their gift of generosity.  During my 50 years of teaching young children and working side by side with teachers I came to know the beautiful and amazing gifts of children.  I have always been surprised and grateful for these gifts. Teachers were generous with their gifts as well.  I owe them much for their shared experiences, mentoring and support.

In those 50 years I lived with a great many of our sisters in the various place in which I taught.  They shared their gifts with me in an never ending stream of generous giving; modeling gracious living, listening when I needed understanding, supporting when I lacked courage, mentoring for better teaching, guiding for a fuller life of service, challenging me to develop my gifts.  Those years were filled with glorious, wonderful learning.  Over the years I lived with sisters who were artists, musicians, philosophers, theologians, poets, dramatists, speech therapists, reading specialists, mathematicians and great cooks.  My memory focuses more on the persons and their sharing with me in myriads of ways.  Even when times were difficult or there was grief in my family someone was there to see me through it all.  Prayer, friendship, learning and laughter seemed to fill the days.

My experience with the class online brought all these gifts to mind as other sisters helped me with computer problems, proofreading, finding the Greek for certain words, and finding reference books and materials.  This made me wonder if each of us, each person, has the potential for many gifts that we can help each other develop.  God is present in everyone with a continual flow of gifts to use for service to others.  As I look up in the Chapel I see the greatest gift, the gift of love that permeates all of us and flows outward. Gratitude is over whelming!  Alleluia!