Can you see it?

Today I was once again reading from Kalas' book, I bought a House on Gratitude Street.  In the chapter I read, he spoke of a sermon he heard that had the theme of "If you can see it, you can have it."  The scriptural basis of the sermon was the story of Elijah and Elisha.

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.’ Elisha said, ‘Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.’ He responded, ‘You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.  (2 Kings 2:9-10)

Do you ever have the experience of sitting in a church meeting and feeling the weight of dread decend?  People talk about the lack of children in the service, the fact that fewer people are members of the church, the idea that people don't want to volunteer, and the list goes on and on.

I don't think we can see it.  I think we are so caught up in the negatives that we can't see a vital, healthy church.  Do we have the hope that we can be what God calls us to be?

If we can't see it, we can't have it.

Give Thanks

I mentioned last week that I spent some time in prayer after communion just thanking God for all of the wonderfulness in my life. It's am amazing practice, because thanksgiving builds a way of looking at the world.

Kalas, in the book I am reading, asks, "Why express your gratitude to other people?"  He answers the questions, and here are my answers (some of which are the same as his):

• We are called to spread light.  Remember yesterday when I quoted the idea that gratitude is love with a memory?  Sharing gratitude for a service given is sharing love, and that is light.  We do it because we are called to do it.
• What if the other person doesn't seem to care about our words of thanks?  First of all, you don't really know what effect your words and actions will have on another person.  Secondly....
• Being grateful transforms who you are.  When we are grateful, we see more for which to be grateful.  
• And to put it bluntly, life needs more grace from you and me that it needs silence, or even grumbling.  

So give thanks.  Kalas, in the first half hour of each day, lists those things from the previous day, for which he is thankful.  I've done that for periods of time.  It's helpful to me to have a "rule" to list at least three. Specifically.  I can look at the blank sheet of paper, and think, "Yesterday was terrible; there is nothing to be grateful for."  But if I must list three, I can find them.

Gratitude

I really do have some new pictures to show you; I just need to spend some quality time with my laptop computer first.  Anyway...

I just started a book I've had on my shelf for a while called I bought a House on Gratitude Street by J. Ellsworth Kalas.  I think I'll write today's posts with just a few one liners from what I've read so far (Introduction and half of Chapter 1).  Maybe some of these will be future posts; maybe they will only serve as springboards for your own thoughts:

• Gratitude is love applied...gratitude is love with a memory.
• If you insist on holding on to the conviction that you're a self-made person, you'll never buy property of Gratitude Street.
• When we rise above deprivation, it can easily make us small and mean inside...
• Gratitude that is not expressed is meaningless.  Gratitude is not complete if it is simply a feeling within one's bosom.  Unfortunately, however, we often leave gratitude in that unfinished state.  That is because gratitude is such a warm and fuzzy feeling that we think the feeling is the essence of gratitude when in truth the feeling is just the beginning.