During last Sunday’s service I was leading a meditation, inviting myself and everyone to give ourselves a breather from all of our relentless striving & fixing, from all the hard work of crafting our lives and changing the world — and for a moment just to allow our BEING to be enough.

It was going something like, “Simply be and breathe… We can still make and change and do all that we hope to make and change and do… But for right now, let’s just be… The rest is gravy…”  

I was rambling a little there, but it seemed kinda perfect because I realized that I had stumbled into my Thanksgiving message:  our work, our transformation, our boundless creativity is the gravy on top of the already-perfect mashed potatoes of our existence.

Right here, right now, we’re complete.  Right here, right now, we’re whole.  Right here, right now, we’re perfectly suited for our lives and everything in them.  From here, we can take whatever next steps to create whatever next creations we set our hearts and minds to.  I think we ought to take powerful steps and create beautiful things!  

But still, that’s just the gravy.

Fulfillment isn’t something experienced only after we’ve created and transformed everything into satisfaction; rather, fulfillment is in being wholly, gratefully, ourselves right now.

Existence sets us up for a gazillion choices and opportunities.  For sure, we’re also born into plenty of challenges.  But the more we approach it all with gratitude and faith, the more gracefully we position ourselves to discover the gifts within every aspect of the journey.

This video link (CLICK HERE) is from Thanksgiving two years ago, which was a rough and confusing time for me.  It came up as a “memory” on my Facebook feed this week, and I thought it was worth sharing again.  I described gratitude as a savory, multi-layered onion.  I was feeling how gratitude can peel back our own layers — from obvious blessings, through more vexing situations, into the depths of mind-blowing unknowns where all we’re left with is:  I AM.

I think this is the point of spiritual practice:  to awaken and stretch into a deeper awareness of our own sufficiency, not  regardless of circumstance, but consciously in and through all circumstances and conditions.   

And I believe that this is the point of spiritual community:  to do it together, to share freely our wholehearted being with each other, whatever we’ve got going on.  

When we muster courage and place trust in the fact that we are, absolutely, enough to meet all that life is throwing our way — through blessing and hardship, freedom and constraint, harmony and discord — we shine.

I am very thankful for you, my friends.  This Sunday, December 1, we’ll do some gratitude ritual and candle lighting.  We can invoke fifty shades, a thousand shades, a trillion shades of gravy to sauce up the world with our delicious creativity.  I can’t wait to be with you!  XO, Drew

© 2019 Drew Groves