Being Grateful For ‘The Little Way’

What are the big blessings and small graces for which we are grateful this year?

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. I’ve found that the best antidote to vanquishing despair is to take account of the many small moments of grace that come to me unbidden and undeserved.

This past week, at the monthly online “Poetry & Spirituality” workshop I attend (guided by the wonderful Boston poet Lisa Breger), our assignment was — you guessed it — to write a poem or reflection on giving thanks.

It’s normal to think first of those blessings that are writ large in our lives — gratitude for a spouse, good health, or family and friends. Perhaps it’s the after-effect of the pandemic years, but all in our group chose to describe simple acts of kindness and brief moments of joy rather than big-ticket blessings.

Patti said she is grateful for still being able to walk up and down stairs without stumbling; for the cellphone that didn’t crack when it dropped; for learning how to light the fireplace after her husband passed away; watching her grandson dance as she sang “Mr. Tap Toe;” and finding car keys that were lost for a year.

She wrote of the people who offered to decorate her house for Christmas — including a complete stranger who is a professional decorator — after she told of her holiday blues following her husband’s death on Facebook.

Our workshop leader Lisa recalled her experience battling lymphoma. “I’d arrive at the hospital for chemotherapy and would say, ‘Thank you,’” she wrote. “Thank you for the medicine, sickening as it was, and for the lovely nurse Maggie who administered it through a port implanted in my chest … for her family, and for the Lama [Buddhist chaplain] who would sit with me in prayer. Thank you for my doctors and my Annie and the three hawks who each afternoon soared over the lake as I watched from my window.”

Lisa added, “For me, the sickness brought to light all my gifts and filled me with gratitude that erased any potential chorus of why me, why now?

I wrote of my gratitude for the rabbit who arrives after dark, sits stonelike beside a fire hydrant and keeps me company when I come outside to gaze at the moon, and for the crows who amuse me with their acrobatics as I watch them mornings from the window by my writing desk.

I wrote of the day I was questioning whether my life and work are amounting to anything and a card arrived in the mail from a woman who has attended some of my retreats. It said, “I hope you can feel the love of those of us who are touched by your writing when you have difficult days.”

Sheer grace.

Writers in a monthly Poetry & Spirituality workshop the author attends wrote of incidents and ecnounters in their lives that filled them with gratitude.

Our thanksgiving poems and reflections reminded me of St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s “Little Way,” in which small kindnesses, given freely in a spirit of love, become the wellsprings of holiness, the sustenance of life.

Our friend Linda brought us back to big-picture gratitude, writing an acrostic poem in which each line begins with a letter of the word Thanksgiving, spinning out the word’s meaning:

Truth spoken to power, taught, heard, learned

Humility, honesty, hope, humor, being able to laugh at myself

Acceptance — not my will but Thine

Nourishment of body, mind, soul, spirit

Kindness — given and received, above all be kind

Sympathy, sincerity, synergy

Generosity off-setting greed, giving of self, time, talent, treasure

Insight to self, to others’ pain

Vision of a future with hope, peace

Imagery — motion of words, music, playfulness, delight

Necessity — need not want

Grace blessing you, me, together — amazing grace. Gratitude.

I am so thankful for the poets in this wonderful workshop and the communion we share through poetry. They remind me that while the world can be a dark and forbidding place, our lives often overflow with shafts of light and grace.

As we head toward Thanksgiving Day, can we be mindful of the ‘little way’ of unexpected kindnesses, small mercies and hidden blessings that enhances our days?

(For more information on the monthly online Poetry & Spirituality workshop led by Lisa Breger and sponsored by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Mary Monastery in Rock Island, IL, please visit: https://smmsisters.org/retreats/spirituality-and-poetry-2022-dec

St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote of “The Little Way” in which small kindnesses, given freely in a spirit of love, become the wellsprings of holiness.