skraps: Poem on Gratitude

Last weekend, we went south to Sioux Falls where I grew up. The main purpose of the trip was to visit my sister Karen, who has just recently been diagnosed with cancer. And it's not some nice, friendly little kind of cancer, either - it's a very mean, ugly kind of cancer. During the trip we also had to return our dog Uma to her previous owner, my niece Jessie. Things just were not working out with Uma and us. Despite the fact that we gave up the dog for logical, practical reasons, I am still feeling a big void with her absence. To add to the mood established by these fun facts, it has been a tough week at work. Let's just say that life as a public servant has its challenges, and leave it at that.

Maybe you can guess where I am going with this. Yep, you're right: it's time for skraps. For tonight's selection, I offer a Poem on Gratitude by Jean Farakha:

On awakening, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessings will call forth.
For to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe.
And awaiting each and all.
On passing people in the street, on the bus, in places of work and play, bless them. The peace of your blessing will accompany them on their way and the aura of its gentle fragrance will be a light to their path.
On meeting and talking to people, bless them in their health, their work, their joy. Bless them in their abundance, their finances.
Bless them in every conceivable way. For such blessings not only sow seeds of healing, but one day will spring forth as flowers of joy in the waste places of your own life.
As you walk, bless the city in which you live,
Its government and teachers, its nurses and street sweepers, its children, and bankers, its priests and prostitutes.
The minute anyone expresses the least aggression or unkindness to you, respond with a blessing and bless them totally, sincerely, joyfully, for such blessings are a shield which protects them from the ignorance of their misdeed, and deflects the arrow which was aimed at you.
To bless means to wish, unconditionally, total unrestricted good for others and events from the deepest wellspring in the innermost chamber of your heart.
It means to hallow, to hold in reverence, to behold with utter awe, that which is always a gift.
To bless is yet to invoke divine care upon, to think or speak gratefully for, or to confer happiness upon.
To bless all without discrimination of any sort is the ultimate form of giving.