Gratitude may be an absolute necessity when it comes to spiritual progress; however, gratitude is not absolute as related to everyday experiences. The tabloid version of gratitude―being thankful for health, friends, and nice things―drudges up the question, Are the people who lack in health, friends, and “stuff” not grateful?
Years ago, I was at a meeting where people were “being grateful.” A lady, who has a high-profile, high-paying job, spoke up and sincerely declared her thankfulness for the rain we’d just had (we lived in a desert). The rain gave her a reprieve from physically watering her plants and flowers in her backyard with a hose.
I said nothing. I sat in my own silence.
I live 4 miles up the road from this grateful lady and had just spent 3 days and night, with my husband, in our orchard, trying to save our cherry crop from rain damage. We failed. That crop was to pay our next year’s bills.
I was not grateful for the rain. I was tired and sad, but somewhere, somehow, I still knew gratitude. It was in the cosmos of divine knowledge.
“The Science of spirituality comes with tool in hand to separate the chaff from the wheat.” (21st Century Science and Health)
Chaff
- gratitude is triggered by some human event or thing
- thinking humans should be grateful for the same object
- assuming gratitude for a mortal thing is absolute
Wheat
- Consciousness, gratitude, and spirituality are inextricably bound together―prolific and identifiable as us
Einstein’s theory of relativity points to the fact that life goes on despite the comparativeness of time and space. Gratitude goes on despite the comparativeness of human health, friends, and things. Gratitude can’t be warped by relativity. Appreciation can’t be diminished by an absolutist. Gratitude is spiritual, shared, and coexists with us.
Another way to look at gratitude: Spiritual gratitude is not being grateful for “time” but for ever-abiding now.
Healing Science Today 