Beginning at the Beginning

If I have learned anything in the past few years, I have learned that I can be an ungrateful ass. I complain about problems that aren't really problems. I take people for granted. I get mad at others for things that are really about me. It's not that I think I'm really any more or less ungrateful than others. It's not that I don't share with others how I feel about them, that I don't appreciate having food to eat and a roof over my head. But I've managed to have a number of experiences, interactions, crises that have reminded me time and time again how much I have to be grateful for, and how little time I take remembering that fact.

I'm a minister, and I have a very weird job.  Because of that job, I have an opportunity to be present at important moments in people's lives, both the highs and the lows. Being in the middle of that often puts my life into perspective in a way that I might not be blessed by if I had another career. I'm present in birth, in death, in crisis, in marriage, in divorce, in conflict, in joy. That has a tendency to put gratitude in perspective. 

A few months ago, I had a conversation with a parishioner. She was talking about a moment she had when she told her husband how much he meant to her. She called him and told him how much she loved and appreciated him.

And he was surprised.

Not surprised that she loved him, really, since they had a good relationship. But he was taken aback by the depth that she shared about her love for him. The woman said, "I always assumed he knew these things." It made me wonder about all of the people in my life whom I loved, and the depth of appreciation I had for them. Did they know I was grateful for them? Have I ever explicitly shared what they meant to me?

So I've decided that I'm going to spread some of that gratitude around. I'll be taking the next year to send one letter a week to a person I'm grateful for, and am using this space as a way to reflect on what that experience is like, whether it's challenging, and what kind of affect it has on me to write these letters. To help me with the writing process, I've decided to set some parameters:

1. I won't share the letters I've written on this site without permission, and won't use real names. 
2. I will write out 52 names, and pick randomly to whom I'll write. 
3. I'm leaving this space open to friends/colleagues who would like to join in, at my discretion. 
4. I will only tell the truth. 
5. I will not write letters out of obligation. 
6. I will not limit my letters to people I like, or people with whom I still keep in touch, only to people who have impacted my life in a way for which I am grateful.

The last few may be particularly challenging. I thought about who I'd write to. If I sent one to a family member, do I have to write to all of my family members? Are there negative consequences of gratitude? Is gratitude going to be easy? What do I say to someone with whom I no longer have a relationship? Am I going to weird some people out? I don't have the answer to these questions, which is part of my impetus to begin this practice. I will start on January 1st, 2014, and write one letter each week. Hopefully I'll learn a thing or two.