"There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy." Ralph H. Blum

The hit song that says, "I can't get no ...satisfaction", could be the theme of the self-centered mind.

“When I get there, that, him, she or it...then I'll be happy.” This is, of course, flawed thinking. Reality has only one “When” or “There” and that is “Now”. When and if I get satisfied it will be Now. By a strange coincidence it is Now right Now.

Gratitude for the material things in life is insufficient for maintaining lasting peace.

A gratitude based on the temporal and the material will not stand the test of time. Gratitude for a job, a house, toys and “stuff” loses its basis when those things inevitably disappear. I must be grateful that the quality of my life does not depend on circumstances. Otherwise, I will become a victim of circumstance and ungrateful.

Spiritual Gratitude is an attitude of being in a constant state of arrival. “Hey I just got here! Hey I just got here again!”

Gratitude is a state of Wonder.

We are inanimate matter realizing its own existence. This is not happening anywhere else in our neck of the Universe. We have been listening, peering and probing to no avail. Even if awareness exists on a planet in our arm of the galaxy, it does not detract from the wonder of it all.

Gratitude is a state of being more than a state of mind.

It remains when all that is unnecessary is removed. It is fueled by faith in the Power behind the principles. A faith that persists even in the face of evidence to the contrary. A faith that is patient. It is a realization that I have all that I require. Nothing outside of me can make me happy.

Spiritual Gratitude is based on the unchanging principles. Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

Spiritual Gratitude is an awareness of the many feet who have trod the path before us.

We are midgets riding on the shoulders of giants. The Sufis see the past as the caravan that went before us making a path and showing the Way. The word in aramaic that Jesus may have used that is translated today as “Kingdom”, actual means the “Way” of the nomadic leader. If so, the Kingdom and the Way point to the same spiritual concept. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light.”

I am grateful that so many of the difficulties of the physical world have been lessened by those who went before. They developed both material and spiritual tools to handle the unexpected. These tools are proven over time. The knowledge of their use is built into their form.

Spiritual Gratitude is an awareness of the overwelming proportion of things that work in our lives. It turns the focus away from the gap between my expectations and reality and towards the Presence of God.

Gratitude is not just saying thanks.

It is giving with no expectation or need for return. It is a cup that is overflowing into the cups of others because it is tapped into an unlimited supply.