I am thinking about the practice of gratitude, and why I do it.  Perhaps at first glance, it could appear to be naive and Pollyannish– if I just smell the roses, maybe I won’t notice the pig shit.

Perhaps the truth is not so far away from that, just deeper.  I am realizing that building my capacity for wonder and delight, that opening the space for gratitude in my soul–all this increases the breathing spaces for compassion to be present.   And compassion is about loving the tender blue of the speedwell looking up from a tangle of grasses, but it’s also about recognizing the role of the pig shit in the cycle of life.  Compassion takes a long hard look at the sunset, and then gazes upon the skull of the groundhog in the mud.

I think (hope?) that practicing compassion develops soul muscles that enable us to look unflinchingly at and listen to the ugliness.  It doesn’t make it easier to hear, to see, perhaps, but what I want it to do is to make it more possible for my soul, my heart, to remain present within those stories.  To witness and listen.

Yesterday, I affirmed again–to myself and publicly–that I want this journey to be about holding it all, about experiencing compassion that can witness whatever gets tossed into the bowl.  By evening, I was handed a story that I don’t want to look at.  I don’t want to smell it.  I want to drop it and wash my hands and walk away from it.  I really don’t know the people at the heart of the story, but we share some loved ones in common, and that is where I need to find a way to be watchful and tender and unflinching in the coming weeks, as the story emerges and is reconstructed and re-created, as people I love and respect move through denial and anger and anguish.

So the practice continues.  I am wincing and flinching, but keeping it open, ready to listen, to step further on this path, to practice non-judgementalism.

May we walk in beauty.  Even in this.  May we walk in beauty.