The Miracle of Gratitude

Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received.
Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling.
Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.
- Henry Van Dyke

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception
to such an extent that it changes the world you see.
- Robert Holden

None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude.
Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves,
and spend without fear of bankruptcy.
- Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.
To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies -
our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family,
our friends, our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Miracle of Gratitude

Give Thanks for the Commonplace

Appreciate Today

Gratitude for THIS Moment
   

Life is More Joyful When You are Thankful

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies;
but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and,
as the magnet finds the iron,
so it will find, in every hour,
some heavenly blessings!
- Henry Ward Beecher

When we trust in the natural goodness around us,
we open ourselves for the blessings of life to flow toward us.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We return thanks to the Great Spirit,
in whom is embodied all goodness,
and who directs all things for the good of his children.
- Iroquois traditional

The roots of all goodness lie
in the soil of appreciation for goodness.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Blessings flow toward gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Create the world that could be

Know that You have been Blessed

Believe in People; Believe in Yourself

The Power of Your Intention
    

Appreciate the Basics

 

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
- Wayne W. Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization
that we have already arrived!
- Michael Bernard Beckwith

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

A Table Grace of Thanksgiving:
We gather today in gratitude for the bounty of the land,
the joyful company around this table,
and all the other blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A List of Gratitudes - a Thanksgiving

Thank You God

Gratitude: Virtue and Joy

Let Each Day be a Thanksgiving
    

Be a Thankful Receiver

Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous

There can be no joy without gratitude.
- Richard Paul Evans

Today I offer a prayer of forgiveness:
forgive the pettiness of my ingratitude...
the absence of profound thankfulness.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter
everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever how we experience life and the world.
- John Milton

Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

Today's affirmation:
I Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving -
I have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring me to this moment.
I give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of my courage and the cold sweat of my fear.
I accept gratefully the entirety of my past and my present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading:; Yes, YOU Can Be Happy

Gratitude for All of Life

Tending the Garden of Our Lives
    

Focus on Gratitude

 

Count your blessings - not your troubles.
- Dale Carnegie

In a society that has you counting money, pounds, calories, and steps,
be a rebel and count your blessings instead.
- Rev. Lisa Heckman

It is always a good day to be grateful for all of life -
grateful for large blessings and small.
Especially to be grateful for the symbolic blessings -
the rainbows and butterflies that come into our lives
when we least expect and most need them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If only the people who worry about their liabilities
would think about the riches they do possess,
they would stop worrying.
- Dale Carnegie

Further reading: Step Back, Gain Perspective

Beyond Worries

May You Be Blessed
    

Appreciate Your Blessings

 

With gratitude, all life appears as a blessing -
without gratitude, all of life
is perceived as a burden.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you arise in the morning,
give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength.
Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.
- Tecumseh

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't
come as a result of getting something we don't have,
but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
- Frederick Koenig

Gratitude Brings Out the Bright Colors of Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Giving Thanks for Our Food

What do you take for granted?

Celebrating the Small Miracles of Our Lives

My Glass of Life
    

Gratitude is Powerful

 

Is your glass of life
half empty?
Or half full?

Be Grateful for All of Life:
Each of us has been infinitely blessed - beginning with the gift of life.
Whatever may appear to be missing or broken on any particular day,
our glass is not half full, it is 99.9% full.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie - from 7 Secrets for a Happy Life

I don't think of all the misery,
but of the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

However much or little you have,
"Thank You" is always a more powerful prayer than, "I need more."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Thank You God

Life Really Is Good

Appreciate Your Blessings

My Glass of Life
          

Thanksgiving Day 2025

 

In a world where so many are hungry,
may we eat this food with humble hearts;
in a world where so many are lonely,
May we share this friendship with joyful hearts.
- Anonymous

As we join hands in fellowship
around this bountiful table,
we give thanks for the blessings of this food
and the love of these friends
as a symbol of our gratitude
for all the manifold blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

For food that stays our hunger,
For rest that brings us ease,
For homes where memories linger,
We give our thanks for these.
- Anonymous

The food which we are about to eat
Is Earth, Water, and Sun, compounded
through the alchemy of many plants.
Therefore Earth, Water and Sun will
become part of us.
This food is also the fruit of the labor of
many. We are grateful for it.
May it give us strength, health, joy.
And may it increase our love.
- Unitarian Blessing

We receive this food in gratitude to all beings
Who have helped to bring it to our table,
And vow to respond in turn to those in need
With wisdom and compassion.
- Buddhist Blessing

Further reading: Zero-Based Gratitude

My Thoughts on Thanksgiving 

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving

Give Thanks for the Commonplace

Thankful and Content
    

Be Grateful, and Pay It Forward

 

TODAY, consider performing an act-of-kindness for someone who can never repay you.

Sometimes our light goes out but
is blown into flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled this light.
- Albert Schweitzer

Each of us has been generously gifted by parents, teachers, mentors, and others we can never repay. So, in gratitude for what we have received, it is now our turn to generously gift the children, the up-and-coming, and the down-and-out -- with no expectation that they can ever repay us - and with the hope that they will, in turn, pay-forward to another generation.

Pay It Forward.
Gift future generations in proportion to your gratitude.
The nature of life is that we pay forward
our biological creation and nurture.
Our parents gift us with life and nurture,
and we gift our children with life and nurture.
While this much is essential to continued human existence,
choose to take "pay it forward" farther - much farther.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father
goes forward, not backward.
What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.
- Nancy Friday

The moment you become miserly you are closed
to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing.
The moment you start clinging to things,
you have missed the target.
Because things are not the target,
you, your innermost being, is the target -
not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you;
not much money, but a rich you;
not many things, but an open being,
available to millions of things.
- Osho

Further reading: Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving

True Measure of a Successful Life

Universal Kindness and Compassion
    

A Month of Giving Thanks 2025

 

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday, as being grateful for everything, especially for the gift of life itself, is at the top of my list of values. Will you join me in a celebration of Gratitude and Thanksgiving for the entire month of November?

[For ME, Thanksgiving is a Celebration of Gratitude for all our Blessings, and independent of the events of 1621 - which is an entirely different subject]

Affirmation:
I commit the whole month of November to expressing gratitude and thanksgiving.

Suppose our gratitude could be zero-based gratitude.
With zero-based gratitude,
we would be grateful for everything we had each day -
regardless of whether it was more or less than yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude, I can be grateful for all the people,
the love, the food, the shelter, the services,
the health, that I am blessed with today,
regardless of what I had yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude,
I can be grateful each day for the gift of life itself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie -- Read about Zero-Based Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
- Melody Beattie

He who can give thanks for little
will always find he has enough.
- Anonymous

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter
everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever how we experience life and the world.
- John Milton

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Recognizing Our Abundance

The Truly Rich

Gratitude for THIS Moment

My Glass of Life
      

There is Always Much to be Thankful For

 

Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received.
Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling.
Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.

- Henry Van Dyke

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception
to such an extent that it changes the world you see.
- Robert Holden

None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude.
Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves,
and spend without fear of bankruptcy.
- Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.

To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies -
our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family,
our friends, our community, for the whole world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: The Miracle of Gratitude

Give Thanks for the Commonplace

Appreciate Today

Gratitude for THIS Moment
   

Have a Thankful Heart

 

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies;
but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and,
as the magnet finds the iron,
so it will find, in every hour,
some heavenly blessings!
- Henry Ward Beecher

When we trust in the natural goodness around us,
we open ourselves for the blessings of life to flow toward us.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We return thanks to the Great Spirit,
in whom is embodied all goodness,
and who directs all things for the good of his children.
- Iroquois traditional

The roots of all goodness lie
in the soil of appreciation for goodness.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Blessings flow toward gratitude.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Create the world that could be

Know that You have been Blessed

Believe in People; Believe in Yourself

The Power of Your Intention
    

Appreciate Every Day the Basic Goods of Life

 

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
- Wayne W. Dyer

Our journey into consciousness of wealth begins with the realization
that we have already arrived!
- Michael Bernard Beckwith

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow

A Table Grace of Thanksgiving:
We gather today in gratitude for the bounty of the land,
the joyful company around this table,
and all the other blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A List of Gratitudes - a Thanksgiving

Thank You God

Gratitude: Virtue and Joy

Let Each Day be a Thanksgiving
    

Receive Thankfully

 

Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous

There can be no joy without gratitude.
- Richard Paul Evans

Today I offer a prayer of forgiveness:
forgive the pettiness of my ingratitude...
the absence of profound thankfulness.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter
everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever how we experience life and the world.
- John Milton

Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

Today's affirmation:
I Receive ALL of Life with Thanksgiving -
I have gratitude for EVERYTHING
that has ever occurred to bring me to this moment.
I give thanks for the joys and the sufferings,
the moments of peace and the flashes of anger,
the compassion and the indifference,
the roar of my courage and the cold sweat of my fear.
I accept gratefully the entirety of my past and my present life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading:; Yes, YOU Can Be Happy

Gratitude for All of Life

Tending the Garden of Our Lives
    

Count Your Blessings Every Day

 

Count your blessings - not your troubles.
- Dale Carnegie

In a society that has you counting money, pounds, calories, and steps,
be a rebel and count your blessings instead.
- Rev. Lisa Heckman

It is always a good day to be grateful for all of life -
grateful for large blessings and small.
Especially to be grateful for the symbolic blessings -
the rainbows and butterflies that come into our lives
when we least expect and most need them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If only the people who worry about their liabilities
would think about the riches they do possess,
they would stop worrying.
- Dale Carnegie

Further reading: Step Back, Gain Perspective

Beyond Worries

May You Be Blessed
    

Gratitude Brings Out the Bright Colors of Life

 

With gratitude, all life appears as a blessing -
without gratitude, all of life
is perceived as a burden.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you arise in the morning,
give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength.
Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.
- Tecumseh

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't
come as a result of getting something we don't have,
but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
- Frederick Koenig

Gratitude Brings Out the Bright Colors of Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Giving Thanks for Our Food

What do you take for granted?

Celebrating the Small Miracles of Our Lives

My Glass of Life
    

Appreciate What We DO Have

 

Is your glass of life
half empty?
Or half full?

Be Grateful for All of Life:
Each of us has been infinitely blessed - beginning with the gift of life.
Whatever may appear to be missing or broken on any particular day,
our glass is not half full, it is 99.9% full.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie - from 7 Secrets for a Happy Life

I don't think of all the misery,
but of the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
- Thornton Wilder

However much or little you have,
"Thank You" is always a more powerful prayer than, "I need more."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Thank You God

Life Really Is Good

Appreciate Your Blessings

My Glass of Life
          

Thanksgiving Day 2024

 

In a world where so many are hungry,
may we eat this food with humble hearts;
in a world where so many are lonely,
May we share this friendship with joyful hearts.
- Anonymous

As we join hands in fellowship
around this bountiful table,
we give thanks for the blessings of this food
and the love of these friends
as a symbol of our gratitude
for all the manifold blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

For food that stays our hunger,
For rest that brings us ease,
For homes where memories linger,
We give our thanks for these.
- Anonymous

The food which we are about to eat
Is Earth, Water, and Sun, compounded
through the alchemy of many plants.
Therefore Earth, Water and Sun will
become part of us.
This food is also the fruit of the labor of
many. We are grateful for it.
May it give us strength, health, joy.
And may it increase our love.
- Unitarian Blessing

We receive this food in gratitude to all beings
Who have helped to bring it to our table,
And vow to respond in turn to those in need
With wisdom and compassion.
- Buddhist Blessing

Further reading: Zero-Based Gratitude

My Thoughts on Thanksgiving 

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving

Give Thanks for the Commonplace

Thankful and Content
    

Pay It Forward

 

TODAY, consider performing an act-of-kindness for someone who can never repay you.

Sometimes our light goes out but
is blown into flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled this light.
- Albert Schweitzer

Each of us has been generously gifted by parents, teachers, mentors, and others we can never repay. So, in gratitude for what we have received, it is now our turn to generously gift the children, the up-and-coming, and the down-and-out -- with no expectation that they can ever repay us - and with the hope that they will, in turn, pay-forward to another generation.

Pay It Forward.
Gift future generations in proportion to your gratitude.
The nature of life is that we pay forward
our biological creation and nurture.
Our parents gift us with life and nurture,
and we gift our children with life and nurture.
While this much is essential to continued human existence,
choose to take "pay it forward" farther - much farther.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father
goes forward, not backward.
What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.
- Nancy Friday

The moment you become miserly you are closed
to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing.
The moment you start clinging to things,
you have missed the target.
Because things are not the target,
you, your innermost being, is the target -
not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you;
not much money, but a rich you;
not many things, but an open being,
available to millions of things.
- Osho

Further reading: Pay It Forward - as an Expression of Universal Gratitude

Opportunity for Daily Thanksgiving

True Measure of a Successful Life

Universal Kindness and Compassion
    

A Month of Giving Thanks 2024

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday, as being grateful for everything, especially for the gift of life itself, is at the top of my list of values. Will you join me in a celebration of Gratitude and Thanksgiving for the entire month of November?

Affirmation:
I commit the whole month of November to expressing gratitude and thanksgiving.

Suppose our gratitude could be zero-based gratitude.
With zero-based gratitude,
we would be grateful for everything we had each day -
regardless of whether it was more or less than yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude, I can be grateful for all the people,
the love, the food, the shelter, the services,
the health, that I am blessed with today,
regardless of what I had yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude,
I can be grateful each day for the gift of life itself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie -- Read about Zero-Based Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
- Melody Beattie

He who can give thanks for little
will always find he has enough.
- Anonymous

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter
everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever how we experience life and the world.
- John Milton

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Recognizing Our Abundance

The Truly Rich

Gratitude for THIS Moment

My Glass of Life