For myself, personally, these kinds of questions always irk me. Why? Because the question itself arrives without passion, and in my view, substance. Passion has weight, energy, and arrives with its own roadmap for completing its mission. Substance, real substance, the kind that life delivers through trial, toil, joy, expectations, and hope, doesn’t ask questions, it delivers “being.” Without passion, and inner self-discovery that arrives through process, questions asked for the sake of asking questions blows apart in the slightest breeze that comes along.

Every time that River, our youngest of seven grandkids comes over to the house, I marvel with wonder at watching her two-year little body master her world. No matter what mood I may have been in before her arrival, whatever backache or joint that was slowing my pace, when River arrives the house and yard explode with commotion and I am off to the chase! When her visit is over and River leaves for home, it takes my wife and I some twenty minutes to put the house and yard back to order…the messier the better, I say…a sign that a one of a kind light and rumble of life had come and has gone!

Thank you, Judith, for your kind words here. Some questions, especially the ones that evolve around the topic of “gratefulness,” leave me either cold or uninspired sometimes, too. (And of course, given the site’s focus, many questions will evolve around gratefulness anyway.) But here’s my practice that helps me to at least respond with something every day: I have been posting every day here since the end of 2014. I copy each day’s question and paste it into my own Word file with the date before each Daily Question. I answer the question in my own file first, then past it into this site. This practice helps me to ponder each question a bit longer and I feel that it improves the quality of my response. If a particular question makes me feel unsettled in some way, I try to respond, like I did with this question, even though my answer may seen negative or contrary in some way. But at least I try to explain why.

As you mentioned, I too benefit and learn from the responses of others and marvel sometimes at how vastly different my response was on a given day from those of other folks on this site. My best to you, Judith. Take care.

Hello Patricia, Thank you for sharing your take on this matter. To be honest, I was uncomfortable with the bluntness of my response, because I truly admire the folks who work hard to make this site happen and I respect the ministry of Brother David, too. For me, the “code” word I use for myself when a particular question doesn’t hold “hold” me is, I usually just post that I need to consider this question further and read how other folks who post reply. Then I read a bunch of replies later that day or the next morning, Again, thank you for your comments here. I am grateful for them!

Hi DeVonna, I grew up in Boston and on the beaches a stone’s throw from the projects where we lived. The hardest part of living inland while farming as missing the ocean. When my wife and I married in 1972 we took our honeymoon in a little cottage on Cape Cod, and when my farming days ended, we moved to southeaster MA and have lived and recreated on the beaches and waters of Buzzards Bay, a half mile from where we live. All three of our daughters met their future husbands on the town’s beach too. I never want to live again anywhere but near the ocean! My very best to you, and happy Thanksgiving if that’s a holiday you celebrate!

Oh how I miss the open sky and natural nighttime darkness, unspoiled by artificial lighting. We farmed many years ago in northern New York State, and I used to take a small tractor out to the fields at 4 AM to bring the cows home to the barn for milking. There was always the stars, seeming so close you could reach up and touch them! On certain days under the right conditions, I’d stop, and I could see the Aurora Borealis, flitting across the northern sky. It was mesmerizing, so much so that by the time I came back to earth, the cows had already walked up and into the barn by themselves.

I appreciate your response, Patricia. To be honest, I am uncomfortable alluding to something that folks could feel is political in nature. But that was not my intention. I’ve sat with this question for 15 or 20 minutes early this morning trying to not write what I did because I know that the gratefulness team works really hard to keep things from appearing political on this site. However, I ended up needing to witness to what I feel is truthful here, thus the focus of my reflection this morning. And for sure, I am so glad, and glad often, that God is God and that I am not!