大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi Julia Neuberger

Gratitude in The Everyday

Good Morning.

A friend of mine received a very serious cancer diagnosis recently, and was shocked and terrified of what the future might hold. She wasn鈥檛 afraid of dying, but she hated the prospect of chemo and radiotherapy, of getting weaker, of a return of her cancer, of gradually giving up. But, as I tried to comfort her, she said something very interesting. She鈥檇 been walking around London and suddenly everything she saw was in much sharper focus, the leaves on the trees, people鈥檚 smiles, the colour of the grass, the smell of the lilies at the flower stall. Everything was writ large, as if she was seeing and sensing things for the first time- or maybe the last.

She鈥檚 not the only person I鈥檝e heard saying this. There is something about bad news that makes the brain focus acutely, on the here and now. As she was talking about revelling in the beauty of the season and the glory of winter in London, she made me realise that it shouldn鈥檛 take a serious diagnosis of disease to make us look at our surroundings more appreciatively. We SHOULD stop in our tracks deliberately and relish the colours, the scents, the overwhelming sense of the good fortune we can achieve from rejoicing in our surroundings. We SHOULD feel blessed by natural beauty and the abundance of nature. We should- like the rabbis of old- say a blessing every time we see something new, thanking God for it- or simply recognising our good fortune in being alive. Today, let鈥檚 each stop for one moment and look at one thing- a tree, an animal, a flower, a plant- and focus on it as if we were seeing it for the first- or last- time.

That should lift our day with joy and gratitude!