seriously...isn't it enough?

I love it when Christmas and Chanukah happen around the same time. Same with Easter and Passover. To me it just says that there are more people focused on the finer things in life. For me, the finest thing in life is gratitude and Easter and Passover just REEK of them.

The Passover Seder has always stood out in my heart and mind as a most profound and pure expression of gratitude. If God had led us out of bondage, but not out of Egypt..dianyu...out of Egypt but not to the Red Sea...dianyu....it goes on like this for some time, with all members of the Seder intoning in unison....dianyu.

Here is what dianyu means as I understand it. It means this: if God had given us this one thing and then nothing again ever again it would have been enough to sustain our gratitude for the rest of our lives.

Same with Easter. Christ died for our sins and we have been made pure. Our sins are forgiven forever. I don't know about you but that does it for me. I'm grateful. Darn grateful.

What is dianyu in your life? What have you already received that keeps you out of lack and in gratitude in perpetuity? If you are reading this the chances are good that you live in America. The land of free education, libraries, pet parks, double-stuff Oreos and soft toilet paper. You are not in bondage, God has forgiven you in advance and you have a computer to read this on. What more could you need?

It does turn out that I am not as stupid as I look, well maybe I am but that is really not the point here is it? The point is I know that life gives us many, oh so many whining opportunities. I have taken advantage of quite a number of them myself. I have privately beat my chest and keened at God and the moon for the position I have found myself in on more than one occasion. I have railed and raised my fists at extremely well attended church events when I felt it simply wasn't possible to let enough people know exactly how unhappy I was with God and his apparent lack of concern for me at worst and his tardiness at best. Always...always...always...I come back to gratitude.

What a blessing and a privilege it is to be able to express my unhappiness at my landlord. It means that I am not foraging in the freaking desert trying to feed my newborn. What delight and extravagance to confess my anger and upset at someone I thought was a friend. It means that I have the time and the audience to express this....usually over an organic cup of hand-dripped coffee, accompanied by a little snack treat.

What do you think of this? I do not care who you are, or what position you find yourself in right now. God, life, family, friends have already given you enough to be grateful for for the rest of your life. I believe this is true. I also believe that the aformentioned group has given you pause to stop and redefine your blessings and your perspective on them. I know you have felt hurt, suffering, pain and loneliness before. You probably will again but there is an energy on this planet that can lift you beyond the emotion and the thoughts and it is real and it is sustainable and it is dependable and it can save your life.

It saved mine.


In my church we say..Baruch bashan...it means the blessings already are

Happy Pasach
Happy Easter
God bless us all...everyone of us.


Rachelle