The Postures of Gratitude

I am a forgetful person. Ask me what I did Christmas Day and I wouldn’t be able to remember. Hubby and I can’t remember if we went on vacation last year…or was that the year before? I don’t know what I had for dinner last night. I forget I watched a movie last month as well as the storyline itself!

Being forgetful doesn’t seem to be solely my problem, though. Neither does it uniquely reflect the time we live in or the culture that shapes us. Instead, it’s part of the experience of being a human. As humans, we are prone to forget.

Throughout sacred Scripture, humanity is reminded again and again to remember—253 times to be precise. In fact, Rabbi Hershel believes, “You can summarize the whole of the Old Testament in one word: Remember.” Trevor Hudson reminds us, “One of our deep sins is forgetfulness.” Yes, we are a forgetful people.

We are also an embodied people. Our bodies are a force of and for holiness. There is wisdom running through our bodies—they know everything first and cannot lie to us. The body speaks constantly, but we might not always hear its messages. Our bodies are carriers of gifts; they are a blessing, a treasure, and a grace. The Spirit of God lives and moves within our bodies. Each of our bodies joins heaven and earth, the Divine and the human. Our bodies are a temple, a sanctuary, a home for God in the world. What happens to the body affects the spirit, just as the strength and resiliency of the spirit nurture our body. Our bodies can help us remember.

How we hold our bodies is called a posture. A dynamic posture is how we hold ourselves when we are moving, like when we are walking, running, or bending over to pick up something. Static posture is how we hold ourselves when we are not moving, like when we are sitting, standing, or sleeping. Our bodies know what to do when and what we need to remember.

Last month, David Steindl-Rast reminded us of the importance of gratitude:

There is a wave of gratefulness because people are becoming aware how important this is and how this can change our world. It can change our world in immensely important ways, because if you're grateful, you're not fearful, and if you're not fearful, you're not violent. If you're grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people, and you are respectful to everybody, and that changes this power pyramid under which we live.

Dynamic and static postures of gratitude can help us as humans to develop a memory of gratitude, so we don’t forget.

If you google gratitude, the first image is someone on a mountaintop or at a beach with their arms raised wide over their heads into the air, often with their face lifted upwards. It is a posture of being open to all the gifts that are available: the thousand things we forget, the simple gifts that surround us.

So, our first posture to help us remember is arms open wide above us with our faces upwards.

The second most frequent image for gratitude is hands over one’s heart. We bring the gifts we’ve acknowledged into our hearts. The second posture moves gratitude from outside of us to inside of us.

The third posture to help us remember is our hands coming together in prayer over our hearts. The emoji for gratitude and prayer is the same – hands coming together in thanks and awe. There is a reverence as wonder attends the gifts and there is a slight bow in the posture.

The fourth posture is to extend our hands outward in a gesture that reminds us to give our light and gratitude away to those we encounter throughout the day.

The four postures move and flow together:

All the gifts are available to us and we receive them. The gifts move into our hearts. The gifts then transform us as we encounter wonder, becoming a herald and agent of reverence. Lastly, we give it all away. Awe, wonder, and gratitude flow from within us out into the world, and the world changes.

I invite you to try flowing through these postures, allowing your body to remind you of the power of gratitude, remembering who you are, who God is, and the beauty of the world we live in.

This reflection ties in with last month’s newsletter, The Dance of Gratitude, and was inspired by the Southern Lights 2023 conference I attended in the middle of January 2023.

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What I’m reading:

This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley

This book is pure poetry, part memoir, part storytelling, part doctrine, and part theology. Riley is the most gifted writer—my friend calls her a “Writer with a capital W.” She comes at theology and doctrine through a different lens which is brilliant; this book turned and shifted things inside of me. Her chapters on Dignity and Belonging are the best I have ever encountered. I could only read a chapter at a time because each is so rich and dense. I got too full. If you haven’t read it, you will want to. It is fantastic.

What I’m watching:

https://www.angel.com/watch/the-chosen

Season 3 of The Chosen

Oh my, I love this series! The storytelling, the character development, the portrayal of Jesus, and the gospel stories are the best I have ever seen. I laughed and cried. One of the strongest features is how it succeeds in bringing the well-known people in the New Testament to life. The Bible’s description can be on the fact-heavy, flat side, not multi-dimensional; often having to guess at background stories and personality traits of the main characters. In The Chosen, the nuances of the disciples’ personalities, the relationships, and the human tensions involved are believable. There is nothing plastic or shallow. I especially love The Chosen’s Jesus character portrayed as a man filled with not only divine love and compassion for a confused, immature, burdened humanity, but also possessing a terrific sense of humor and even fun. I fell in love with Christ all over again.