On a day celebrating gratefulness and to celebrate the synchronicity of finding out more about Brother David Steindl-Rast (I stumbled onto his bio at Gratefulness.org as it turns out one of his most popular books is Gratefulness) in yesterday's post, I offer a few selections from his books:
Our eyes see, but only our heart looks through things to their meaning. Our nose registers scents, but only our heart will track like a hound its ethereal quarry. Our tongue tastes, but only a heart can feast. Skin touches skin, but being in touch is a matter of heart. Our ears hear, but only a listening heart understands. — A Listening Heart
Another site has high praise for Brother David: "Long before Oprah started millions of women keeping gratitude journals, Brother David Steindl-Rast was writing about gratefulness as the heart of prayer and the most liberating way to live in joy and grace."
I'd like this post to be solely about gratefulness, but reading about Brother David makes it clear he belongs on my The Real Persuaders list: "He co-founded the Center for Spiritual Studies in 1968 and received the 1975 Martin Buber Award for his achievements in building bridges between religious traditions."
I think the first Thanksgiving feast wasn't only a time of gratefulness for the bounty of the harvest, but also a time of bridging between two peoples who in the act of breaking bread seated face to face at the same table witnessed each other wholeheartedly as people. People just like themselves with the same capacity to laugh, cry, scream, touch, create, jump, sing, run, hide, hesitate, doubt and love.
In his foreward to a book on Meister Eckhart, Brother David writes:
All the different religious traditions can be traced back to an experience of communion with the Ultimate by their founders or reformers. Historic circumstances lead then to the great diversity of religious traditions. Yet all those diversities are only so many expressions of one and the same mystical core — expressions of the sense of ultimate belonging. This mystical core needs to bring forth so many different myths and teachings, needs to be celebrated in so many different rituals, because it is inexhaustible.
..and needs to be celebrated in the essence of so many different people in so many expressions because it is inexhaustible.
It is only fitting to close with a quote from Meister Eckhart:
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.
[All quotes except Eckhart's from Spirituality Health's Living Spiritual Teachers series.]
Comments