Easter Gratitude
The season of Easter runs for fifty days – a veritable week of weeks – from Easter Sunday to Pentecost.
But truth be told, most of us don’t think of it that way. We live in a culture that is much bigger on the thrill of anticipation than on savoring the actual experience, and once the celebration is over we’re onto thinking about what’s next. So even though Christmas runs for twelve days, by December 27th (saving the 26th, of course, for post-Christmas sales) we’re thinking about New Year’s. And once Easter is come and gone, it’s onto Memorial Day and the like. (And, yes, I realize the two holidays I mentioned coming on the heels of the religious ones are entirely secular, but that’s also an aspect of the world we live in.)
While I understand this penchant for looking ahead to what’s next – I’m also incredibly future-oriented – I think we miss something by rushing through the moment too quickly. And so to emphasize, prolong, and experience more deeply the joy of Easter, this year I’ve decided to observe Fifty Days of Gratitude.
Gratitude strikes me as an response to Easter because the resurrection of our Lord comes as such an unexpected, surprising, even shocking event. I mean, the one thing we can count on in this life is death (along with taxes, of course :)). And if there’s anything we assume is a constant, a given, an unchangeable element of our life in this world it’s that all things come to an end. We might rationalize or romanticize that by talking about savoring every moment or beauty of the circle of life — and I think there’s something to that — but the fact that there is a clearly demarcated end beyond which none of us has any experience is perhaps the great limiting fact of our lives.
Until, that is, God raises Jesus from the dead. This is the center of the Christian faith: that the God who created the world from nothing also re-creates life and love so that death no longer has the last word. Death is no longer the ultimate factor not only limiting our lives but also coloring them with an unavoidable dread. Rather, life – new life, rich life, abundant life – becomes the reality that colors how we look at everything, including even death.
And to me, the most appropriate response to this new reality is not simply celebration or even joy – though I’d make room for each of those – but gratitude. Gratitude that in Jesus God takes on our lot and our life; experiences all that we experience, including even death; and accompanies us through death into new life.
So in this sense I think Easter is about resurrection, resurrection is about new and unexpected possibilities, and unexpected possibilities are an occasion for gratitude. My hope is that by spending the next fifty days giving thanks for all that I have been given I will live into the Easter reality of new life and possibility more fully and thereby face all the challenges of my life with greater faith and confidence.
So each day, for the next seven weeks, I’ll post one thing for which I am grateful. (I’ll do two on Mondays to preserve a Sunday sabbath.) And I’d invite you to do the same. You can keep a gratitude journal, share something for which you’re grateful in the comments, or simply offer a short but sweet prayer of gratitude each day. These won’t be the only posts I make, but I will try to post (or, if I can figure out how, re-post to keep the same list intact and not have fifty separate posts) each day. In any event, whether you comment, journal, or pray, I hope that the joy of the resurrection kindles in your heart wonder at the possibilities the empty tomb represents and gratitude for the life in abundance God has given us to share in this world and the one to come.
Easter blessings!
50 Days of Gratitude
1) A healthy and vibrant faith community. Easter Sunday was a joyful celebration of color, music, and preaching for us; and I hope it was for you, too.
2) Children who are happy in life and school. Not always the case, of course, as all kids go through tough times. But ours are at a sweet point in their lives and that’s a a joy to be treasured.
Thank you, David!
… For the inspiring meditations of lent, and now for the great idea of a gratitude post Easter discipline
Will start one immediately!
Wonderful idea!! I am sharing this with my congregation’s Facebook group. Thanks!!!
Hey David,
I have watched this little clip to urge me into the place of gratitude. Young people have often inspired me to use my imagination to be grateful, and the little girl who intros this clip does it for me again and again. This clip has been around for some time, but I’m going to use it weekly for my gratitude reminder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nj2ofrX7jAk
It is a Moving Art original short. This inspirational video was well responded at TED conferences and filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg motivates those around him as happiness is revealed. Spoken word and music montage created and composed by Gary Malkin. Narration written and spoken by Brother David Steindl-Rast.
And as long as you have me going here, a friend challenged me to turn gratitude into a verb. Put it in motion by acknowledging people in my life by writing them a letter. 50 letters in 50 days to people that made a difference in my life. It created an expansive place in my heart for something new! Amazing.
nancy lee
Hi, Nancy Lee. Thanks for idea of writing letters. I’d heard that suggestion some time ago and thought it was a wonderful idea but, alas, I haven’t made the time to move beyond admiring it to doing it. A critical move! With your encouragement and witness, maybe soon. 🙂
I featured the prayer by Brother David and music early this past fall but I like the pictures that go with the one you highlighted better because they are so filled with people rather than just nature. Easter blessings!
I am grateful for your perspectives. I look forward to your a word of gratitude for each of the 50 days of Easter.
Thank you for this idea of celebrating 50 days of gratefulness during this season. Perhaps you are already aware of gratefulness.org? It is a wonderful website for this purpose of increasing gratefulness. They have also just developed a free phone app that I am using and could be especially useful for this 50 days of gratefulness idea. It is a garden of sunflowers which you plant which each journal entry of gratefulness – lovely!
Thanks for sharing this link. It’s a wonderful site that I didn’t know about but will feature something across this season. Thanks, again.
Thank you for another positive and stimulating blog post, David. It is indeed necessary to fill Easter season in meaningful ways.
Your suggestion is great!
If I may add another suggestion:
I think that Easter season is a time to also confess and celebrate our Christian hope – 1 Peter 1:3-4 and 3:15-16.