Gratefully yours

Feb. 1, 2007

Dear David,

A book I'm reading claims to contain the secret of life. I'm a sucker for claims like that. I have books on the secrets of golf in general, putting, the swing plane and the swing tempo, along with books on the secrets of relationships, sex, meditation, martial arts, yoga, the harmonica, the guitar, Venice, Paris and more.

I know all these secrets and yet want to know more.

James Taylor said the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Every time he sings he seems to be doing just that.

I think one of the secrets of life might be gratefulness. Someone can do or say something to make you cry, you can lose your job, your favorite team can get whipped, your stomach's upset, but aren't you still grateful to be alive?

What would the list of everything you're grateful for look like? How long would that list be?

You can be grateful for how good it feels just to move your body. One of my golf teachers said the secret of the swing is to swing so that it just feels good.

How long would the list be of things you don't like about your life?

Sometimes complaining is more tempting than being grateful. Complaints tend to fall into two categories: What we want and don't have, and what we have and don't want. One complaint seems to generate two. Soon they're running amok.

Few of us think we have enough money. We want more but don't know how to get it. So we turn our lack of money over and over in our minds, like a chicken on a rotisserie, until we're finally cooked.

That probably won't bring us more money. Good books insist that everything is within the grasp of everyone who believes it's so.

Luke 11:9 says "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

The book about the secret of life says we are all like transmission towers vibrating at different frequencies depending on what we are thinking and feeling.

If you're thinking about everything you don't have, then "don't have" is the frequency you're on and "don't have" is what you get. When you're grateful for what you do have, you're on the "do have" frequency. That's what joy sounds like.

Meister Eckhart, the 13th-century Christian mystic, said this about gratefulness: "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice."

I really think the secret of life is a mystery. All of us wonder how the world really works. What's behind the curtain? Various dogmas purport to tell us. But the mysteries remain mysteries all the same.

One Saturday night in the fourth grade I dreamed about a pretty red-haired classmate I had a crush on.

When I walked into my Sunday school class the next morning, she was sitting there in her Girl Scout uniform. I was dumbfounded.

The girl hadn't just turned up, of course. Her Girl Scout troop was visiting my church that day. But that didn't explain away the coincidence for me. My 9-year-old brain knew nothing of premonitions. It wondered if my dream somehow had summoned her. I still do.

I marveled at how mysterious and wondrous the world must be. I still do.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.