The Transformative Power of Paying Attention
A Reflection on the Practices of Gratitude
With crisp mornings and early nights, we feel the change of season in our bones and heavy eyelids. These lengthening, darker days are punctuated by moments of celebration, which attempt to alert us to things of greatest importance. One such moment of celebration is the last Thursday of November, “A Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens,” as President Lincoln put it in his original 1863 proclamation. One reason we love the Thanksgiving holiday in my home is this focus on gratitude. My wife has sought to develop this with a tradition she started a few years ago. In early November, she crafts a simple turkey silhouette, and each evening we add a feather with something we are grateful for. We love decorating the turkey and hearing each other’s simple expressions of gratitude. But this practice has taken…well…practice.
We need the practice of gratitude to move beyond the forced, awkward exchange of happy platitudes we easily can fall into one day a year. This demands more than a mere revitalization of old Abe’s national holiday, but a revival of the heart. And this revival of the heart must be cultivated through habituated practices.
From a very young age, I was taught by parents, teachers, and even the television that “please” and “thank you” are magic words. Now, as a parent myself, I see the need to teach my own children to be grateful. It’s not something that comes to us immediately or naturally. But what is gratitude? Is it as simple as just saying “thank you”? I think it’s more than this. To be grateful is to take notice of all we have been given, delight in it, and turn that delight into thanksgiving and praise.
First, we need to take notice. The practice of gratitude begins with expanding our awareness. In the midst of our noisy, busy, crowded lives, gratitude invites us to slow down and pay attention. Every moment is a gift for those who have developed the posture to receive it. Secondly, gratitude invites us to delight. Have you ever been overwhelmed with wonder? Memories rush into my mind: visiting the ocean as a kid, snowboarding down a mountain in the winter, catching my first fish, eating my grandma’s chocolate chip pie, having a good drink, walking with my wife at sunset, experiencing the birth of each of our daughters. Call to mind the beauty and wonder of life under the sun and allow yourself to delight in all of these good gifts. Lastly, turn that delight into thanksgiving and praise. There is a Chinese proverb that says, “When you drink water, think of its source.” As we learn to notice and delight in all we have been given, we complete the practice of gratitude by offering thanksgiving and praise. Or as C.S. Lewis puts it in his Reflections on the Psalms, “We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.”1 God invites us to enjoy him through the practice of gratitude.
One of my favorite verses on gratitude is James 1:17. It says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (ESV). All of life is a gift from our Father and can be received with gratitude. When we come to know that God is good and that he gives good gifts to his children (Mt 7:11), even our suffering can become an avenue for thanksgiving. First Thessalonians 5:18 encourages us to “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (ESV). Gratitude has the experience-defying ability to cultivate glad hearts and joy even in suffering. But how do we do this, moment by moment, in every circumstance?
For me, cultivating a grateful heart has centered around learning to pay attention. I am naturally melancholic and tend to struggle with despair. I am not naturally aware of God nor the many good gifts he offers every day, in every moment. A few years ago I was given a gratitude journal. The front cover read, “Attentiveness is the gateway to gratitude and gratitude is the gateway to transformation.” Within the following pages, it outlined simple daily practices for paying attention. One suggested practice was to reflect upon and note what you experience through each of your senses (hear, see, smell, taste, touch) each day. Another practice was to list one good, one true, and one beautiful thing you experience each day. I have since made it a practice to begin every day by considering, delighting in, and giving praise for God’s good gifts. I record these reflections in a small paper journal. Whatever your practice (and it will take practice), the benefit of physically recording your gratitude is that you will be able to look back on the many ways God has been present.
In a season where you may or may not feel naturally inclined towards thanksgiving, I would encourage you to begin paying attention. Gratitude is more than an isolated practice to make us happy people. It ushers us into the presence of God. As French philosopher Simone Weil noted: “Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”2 It follows, then, that if we cannot pay attention, we cannot pray. Learn to fix your attention on the presence of God through the practice of gratitude. Slow down and savor the moments God gives and learn to turn those moments of beauty into delight and praise. In gratitude, we experience the presence of God with us. Enjoy him by enjoying his good gifts. Then, turn that delight into praise.
C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1958), 93–97.
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, trans. By Emma Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr (London: Routledge, 2002), 117.