Gratitude: Foundation of Our Spiritual Growth
Gratitude is not simply a quaint idea to which we should tip our caps during a few short weeks in November each fall. It is important that we move beyond a trite understanding and application, and come to understand the real place of gratitude in the spiritual life. It is nothing less than a virtue and disposition that is at the foundation of our potential spiritual growth. (In a corresponding way, its absence is at the “foundation” of spiritual stagnation.) Before we ever begin to speak of spiritual realities, gratitude simply helps us to get by more efficiently, effectively, and happily than the opposite alternative. Grateful people grow and flourish, even in the midst of difficult circumstances, in ways that ungrateful people do not. Still, we must resist the temptation to deal with gratitude simply on the natural level. We must bring these principles to the supernatural level and grasp them there. We must come to understand that gratitude...