Posted by WORD Becoming, Spiritual Reflections and Poetry By Fr Roderick Salazar SVD
Let all
your thinks
be thanks.
(No,
Not Think tanks. The letters H
and S
are in both words:
Thinks, Thanks.
Remember W.H. Auden?
He gave us that stanza : “Somewhere are places where we have REALLY been.
Dear spaces of our deeds and faces.
Scenes we remember as unchanging because there
we changed.”
His, too,
“Let all
your Thinks
be Thanks”.
Huh?
beautiful.
But how?
Of him, friend Dr. Oliver Sacks said:
“Wystan’s mind and heart came closer and closer in the course of his life, until thinking and thanking became one and the same.”
Ah. Mind and heart coming closer and closer to each other until they become one.
Ah, so.
In that way.
Thinks, thanks.
Otherwise,
in my conscious moments,
in my active life,
I cannot really be actually SAYING thanks while thinking and doing other things.
When I am washing my clothes or the dishes, I need to concentrate on what I am doing. Or as a doctor I must focus on my patient, an engineer on my building project, driver on my driving. Even when I am just eating, i should not be texting or answering my phone. I should just enjoy the food.
Focus.
Attention. Concentration. Awareness.
Living the Present.
Loving the Presence.
But Gratitude
as an overall attitude in life,
this is to be my goal to achieve.
My mind and my heart, my body and my soul ever moving as one.
Grace-ful
when I give.
Grate-ful
when I receive.
The same Auden reminds that in prayer, it is best to get the begging part over with quickly,
and get on to the gratitude part.
Oh what a think.
He may not have been openly religious or devout but consider that thought.
Let all
your THINKS
be THANKS.
And so today, in the midst of my work or my boredom, my fears or my tears, my sickness or my pain, my ecstacy and my laughter, smiles, and joy, in all and beneath all things in my life ,
may there be that grace-attitude, the awareness and acceptance, that attitude that life itself is grace.
My Lord, my God, please help me
LET ALL
MY THINKS
BE THANKS.
