Expressing Gratitude
"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." ~Thornton Wilder
A Visionmaker walks a road of meaning with full-hearted gratitude and awe. Every day we are presented a fresh gift by Destiny - a container of 24 hours in which to generate something meaningful. How can one feel anything but full-hearted gratitude and awe for the miracle of time, space and being through which to create?
To a Visionmaker, this is the whole reason for existence - to create meaning. Even during times of challenge and disappointment, the Visionmaker looks forward to pursuing meaning with full-hearted intent.
The Full Heart is the source or every expression of love, every purposeful act, every contribution, and all prayers of thanksgiving and worship. Filled with gratitude for the opportunity to make a meaningful life and awe at the mysterious world around us, the Visionmaker is moved to match such generosity with generosity. Generosity is the natural response of a heart filled with gratitude.
Where there is gratitude and generosity, there is abundance. Abundance means plentiful, full, overflowing, affluent, more than adequate. Abundance is the name of the generative force that gives rise to all forms in the natural world.
Most people think of Abundance as an effect, the result of luck, skill or circumstances, like winning the lottery, picking the right stocks, or being born with the knack to make money. Others see it as a cyclical pattern that includes periods of lack and plenty based on largely unfathomable and unpredictable forces.
Visionmakers sees Abundance as a cause rather than an effect and as the natural energy of creation. It is always present, and always available, flowing like a great river, searching for any opening to manifest its forms. Abundance manifests the natural world. Every person and every thing is an expression of the generative force of Abundance.
Destiny teaches the Visionmaker to see that every human being is a conduit for the flow of Abundance through acts of generosity. Henry Miller saw this distinction clearly:
"The one desire which grows more and more is to give... Giving and receiving are at bottom one thing, dependent upon whether one lives open or closed. Living openly one becomes a medium, a transmitter; living thus, as a river, one experiences life to the full, flows along with the current of life, and dies in order to live again in the ocean."
Miller's insight about whether one is open or closed cuts to the heart of the matter. If Abundance is the ocean, generosity is the river. By being open to the flow of abundance, the Visionmaker actively participates in the dynamics of generosity.
Traditionally, Visionmakers reflect on all that they are grateful for at year end. That is they way they ensure that the heart remains open to the natural law of Abundance.
© Patrick O’Neill 2009. All rights reserved.