What practices help you stay awake — emotionally, spiritually, morally — when the world feels chaotic or absurd?
~ Rev. Cameron Trimble
There is a card on my desk at home that reads, “Be grateful to everyone.”
It is a beautiful message in the freshness of a new day. It supports my deepest beliefs and commitments in the world, which is why I placed the card there to begin with.
On most days it is an object on my desk like any other, sitting amid a vase of dried flowers, a jar of pencils and pens, a small clock, a piece of raku-styled pottery, my daily planner, a few books.
And there are admittedly moments, especially as the day has progressed, when this simple message touches into my frustrations and fears about actions taken by those near to me, by people I am clear that I love, and definitely by those way far off whose actions unravel into the day, threatening lives almost everywhere to our very foundations.
Being away on sabbatical these past months, I’m glad to say that I’ve had beautiful encounters with more people I am grateful for than with those I am not. With the exception of one or two instances, the latter have mostly been the“far off” people, though their impact has too often been quite near.
Then I awakened on the morning I am writing this and glared at the card on my desk.
I felt the impact of its four words touch my heart space as though they were fingers feeling for what was there. It was unpleasant. They felt into brokenheartedness I’ve been holding with care in cupped hands so that I could hold it together, so that I don’t need to feel its pain at all times. They touched into bruised tender places of real fears I’ve been managing, and on this morning feeling the weightiness of that constant effort.
Be grateful for everyone.
While I often believe that, unaware though they might be, the most difficult people in my life at a given time have also served as teachers, gratitude for them is another thing. And yet gratitude makes sense and is even clarifying.
Gratitude for those whose violent and hard-hearted actions bring clarity to me and to those around me, how the depth of meanness from external forces causes us to dig deeper, become more thoughtful and imaginative in our response: to choose what is ours to make manifest in this world; to bring action to the hope we have chosen.
Gratitude for the inner reflection my broken heart leads me to, for the awareness it has brought me to, of that which needs mending and tending within myself, within this small city in which I live, and the forces in the world beyond. Gratitude for generous and wise responses, and the pushing through our fears, many of us have shown ourselves capable of.
Grateful for the actions of those who evoke in me enraged curiosity, fortitude, and lead me toward a compassion I had not imagined or fully understood. That allow me to recognize: “This is why we must also cultivate spaces for rest and well-being.” That some people, by virtue of their direct action, persistence, and fierce presence, are also our balm.
On the reverse side of the gratitude card, Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron explains,
“Others will always show you exactly where you are stuck. Without others provoking you, you remain ignorant of your painful habits and cannot train in transforming them into the path of awakening.”
As difficult as it has been, and will continue to be for some time to come, I am deeply grateful for that which transforms us, especially in these moments when I struggle to be grateful for everyone.
Palms together,
Rev. Jacqueline
Reading: Quietly Wild: Poems, Photographs, and Rituals to Mark the Seasons
Listening to: A Personal Playlist of the 100 Top Songs (over 7 hours of music 😯) I listened to on Spotify in 2025 -- a relationship I shall be ending come 2026.
Watching: Hamnet
Bringing me joy: Holiday gatherings and my return from sabbatical -- of course!