More gratitude

The other day I did a post on gratitude.  So when rifling through my blog subscriptions on Google Reader (my favourite way to keep on top of blogs), I stopped when I saw Mike had linked to another post by Brian Walsh on the same topic.  Hmmm… spring must be in the air.  Makes us grateful.

Brian teaches at Wycliffe College at University of Toronto.  His blog is well worth reading – here’s a morsel to savour on gratitude…

You see, one of the things that characterizes our imperial reality is a sense of deep dissatisfaction and incessant craving. And paradoxically, with such dissatisfaction comes a sense of entitlement. It’s either, “I can’t get no satisfaction” or “the satisfaction I get is my right!”

In her wonderful book, Radical Gratitude, Mary Jo Leddy says that we live in a culture of ingratitude. It’s a culture in which we are held captive by a consumer induced longing that can never be fulfilled. And radical gratitude, Leddy argues, is what can liberate us from such a captivity.

Radical gratitude engenders a spirituality of gift in the face of self-made accomplishment. Gratitude is born of an economy of enough in the face of the hyperactivity of “more.” Gratitude is rooted in grace, while a spirituality of entitlement is decidedly a “works” theology. Gratitude abandons the sullen adolescence of our culture and embraces a humility and gregarious openness born of a mature spirituality.