Unending Thank You

Unending Thank You

Do you desire to express gratitude
for every gift you’ve been given,
as your mother taught you to do?

Even when sunrise to sunset you’re given
ten thousand-plus wondrous gifts
for eyes, ears, nose and taste?

Perhaps begin The Order of Endless Gratitude,
vowed to pray both day and night
in continual thanks to the Divine Gift Giver?

No need for any new religious order
of monks or nuns—their time’s past.

Instead recycle yourself backwards
to those pristine pre-monastic days
when Jesus’ disciples, “were joyful
always, prayed continually, and gave
thanks whatever happens.”

You’ve got work to do, I understand,
and family duties daily to perform;
you can’t be a spinning prayer wheel
gyrating prayers from dawn to dust.

Yet in your heart her voice echoes,
“For each gift, always say thank you.”
Your mother, your greatest teacher,
lovingly channeled divine instructions
on how in your life to find happiness.

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude,”
said Protestant theologian Karl Barth.
There it is! The impossible made easy.

So smile—that outward sign of joy--
on good days or bad, in health or sickness.
Let a smile’s hidden chemistry convert
that external sign into an interior reality,
and fill you up with joy and happiness.