Existential Gratitude (thoughts for a new year)
January 2, 2010
As the 2009 page was flipped, I recap the content of the previous year. Every year I do that. I immerse myself in nostalgia for one or two days and always, I conclude in amazement that everything good and everything bad are fruits of God’s faithfulness to me. Providence never fails, to the point that I’m in love with the fact that I’m not deserving of the blessings and the trails that Jesus has brought my way. As one page is flipped, I conclude therefore that the content, the arguments, and the stories of the past chapter, made perfect sense.
What’s intriguing however, is that if I always reach this conclusion once a page is turned, why can’t I conclude the same thing before starting a new chapter? What I mean is this: Why can’t I always assume from the head start that the good and the bad will make sense? That God will always come through and that grace will always lavish my days?
If I were able to have this attitude I would live in existential gratitude (as opposed to what Sartre called “nausea”) because as Caio Fabio has said, “gratitude is the daughter of grace.”
To live in existential gratitude is to…
1. Look forward to the good while holding low expectations of their arrival. In other words, you always expect the blessings instead of always demanding they come. There’s a difference there. If the blessings come awesome! If they don’t, patient hope kicks in.
2. To stay positive through trials because you hold high expectations for their resolution. Remember, in advance you trust that God will come through and things will make sense. These moments will also be marked by patient hope.
3. Be allowed to savor every unique taste life brings your way. Whether they are bitter, sweet, spicy, or sour. Weather they are an appetizer, a main course, or a dessert. It’s an attitude that allows you to celebrate your life, each life, each encounter, each pain, each caress, each love, each loss, each waste, each misperception, each mistake, each friend, each enemy, each birth, and, each funeral. There’s always a hope that every experience will be a metaphysical one. There’s a hope that everything will work out for good.
So, if it’s true that gratitude is the daughter of Grace then, it must be true that hope is its twin sister.
