If the only prayer you say in your life is “thank you,” that would suffice. —Meister Eckhart
There is a powerful truth in Meister Eckhart’s words. When we are grateful, we feel full. In that moment, we do not seek for anything more.
When we invoke this form of prayer, we become the light of self-awareness (Sacred Masculine energy) bursting forth from the womb of complete acceptance—happy and limitlessly fulfilled. That is when we live as our unique and beautiful presence of the Divine light in the world.
Inviting yourself to become the most grateful person you know is a most enjoyable way to turn daily activities into devotions of Divine awareness.
Growing up Catholic, I do not remember very much emphasis on gratitude. As a teacher, I now understand that those rituals in which we offered prayers of “blessed be” to saints that had gone before us was a way of blessing their lives in gratitude. But because the language was not common, nor the intention of the prayers explained, I did not realize that by opening my heart I could have felt the flood of delight that gratitude can bring.
We 
certainly said grace at our evening meals, but I can’t say that reciting the same rote prayer every night opened my heart in gratitude. We said the prayer together as a family and passed the food. It didn’t occur to me that plants’ and animals’ lives were surrendered so that I could live. I didn’t recognize that the Mother Earth was providing for my physical needs and that her life-force was sustaining mine. If I had, I might have been more specific and heart-felt in offering my prayers of gratitude before I ate.
It wasn’t until I experienced my first Native sweat lodge, where we were invited to share our prayers of personal gratitude, that I discovered the power of this prayer. I marveled as my heart opened wide and tears fell with each word of thanks I offered in that lodge. Life itself became holy to me. Rabbi Harold Kushner describes this experience so beautifully:
Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted–a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.
Gratitude nurtures and elevates spiritual consciousness. I don’t think it is possible to utter an honest, heart-felt prayer of gratitude to God, a person, an animal, the earth or even yourself, without feeling the magnificent fulfillment of the Divine pulsing within you. In gratitude, you realize that all life forms are expressions of Divine creation. In gratitude that comes directly from the heart, you transcend the limits of your mind’s perceptions into direct experience of the Divine.
If you chose one prayer to pray throughout your lifetime, gratitude would be a powerful prayer to choose.
If you are not used to offering prayers of gratitude, consider saying a prayer of thanks in the morning when you wake up and again before you go to sleep. This anchors gratitude into the two most significant transition periods of your day.
If you already offer prayers of thanks in the morning and at night, try adding more prayers before each meal blessing the lives of the food and water that nurtures your body. Then bless and give thanks for your body and the unique experiences of your expression as a Divine being.
If you pray at meals and in t
he evening and morning, you may be ready for gratitude as an ongoing practice. When something troubles you, give thanks for its gifts. When you are involved in a mundane task, give thanks for the way in which the task blesses your life. When you are hoping for something, be in gratitude for the blessings that have not yet arrived.
Consider being in awareness of the hidden gifts that may not look like gifts on the outside—the will of the Divine blessing your life in non-obvious ways. And as Rabbi Kushner suggests,
…see the holiness in the things you take for granted.
All of life is of Divine origin and creation, so throughout the day notice the many people, events, and things that you feel grateful for, especially the things you typically take for granted. The feeling of gratitude repeatedly throughout your day opens doorways to Divine awareness.
Hi Nancy,
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I truly understand how appalled you are by the way we treat animals that are slaughtered for food. It is appalling. I agree that we are quite unconscious. And in many ways, we are not more conscious with our plants. Plants are beings too and are gathered up by machinery, often before they are ready to be plucked up. In the way that I was taught by my Native elders, whenever any life (plant or animals) is taken for food, you give thanks for their sacrifice and receive their life force as a gift. Best of all we don’t “take” we ask beings who have come to this earth, at least in part, to serve the cycle of eating we are all a part of, to surrender their lives so that we may serve the Mystery. When your heart hears the, “Yes,” that being has agreed to serve by becoming nourishment (plant or animal).
I have brothers that have hunted with more consciousness and loving relationship than most of us pull up our vegetables from the garden. We forget to ask and to receive permission. That said, even when we forget and “take,” some part of consciousness is agreeing to play out these roles, until finally we as humans remember all life deserves to be treated with love and respect. We have the ability know the desires of the animals and plants. We can create a much stronger bond with nature in which we consciously help each other. We forget that eating is a relationship with other beings—all of us serving the Creator’s plan. My elders also taught me that when we die, our bodies fertilize the Mother Earth so that there is food for the plants and animals. We are all in service to feed each other. This is how I learned to understand the cycle of eating, and this is the “surrender” I was referring to in the article. “Surrender” may not have been the best choice of words, but there is healing when we bless the gift of life that is nourishing our bodies when we eat.
It didn’t occur to me that plants’ and animals’ lives were surrendered
The animal’s life was not “surrendered,” it was stolen from them, kicking and screaming in pain and fear.
If cows milk was involved-milk comes from a grieving mother whose nourishment for her child was stolen and whose baby was murdered over a three month period of starvation until he/she hobbled and was electrically prodded to the slaughter floor.