Giving Thanks

I like the idea of "giving" thanks.  It incorporates an active verb, to give, and a part of our lives that's extremely important to nurture if we want to live these lives as fully as we can.  What's probably most fascinating to me, though, when I consider the concept, is that I'm not sure just to whom or what we're giving thanks--after all, who receives these thanks of ours?

If you give me a nickel, then I have a coin in my possession, and I can do something with it.  If you give me a bottle of wine, I have another possession and I can do with it as I please--and most probably, I'll drink it.  But if you give me thanks, just where does that go?  Just what do I actually have when you thank me?

Of course, most of us realize that this type of giving is the most important of all.  It's great to give things to people, after all, but it's even greater to give more than that, to give parts of ourselves that aren't "things" at all, but true parts of who we are.  "Thanks" falls into this category, as do love, compassion, encouragement, peace, compliments, and a host of other concepts that we somehow don't take as seriously as we could simply because we can't see, touch, or feel them.

So on this day, I give my thanks.  I thank the people I work with and live with, and I thank the many people who do the things that help me to eat, to live comfortably, to sleep safely, to travel and to work and to create.  I thank the people who visit Living Life Fully, for their visits give me purpose--reason to go on with the site and to continue adding to its content.  And I thank you, for here you are on this wonderful world of ours, and in these words our lives cross for this ever-so-brief moment.  You being who you are is a great contribution to the world, and I appreciate that contribution of the good and the noble more than you can imagine.

I give these thanks knowing that I'll never see them land, and never see any concrete effects of their journey out into the world.  But on this day dedicated to the concept of thanks, I look inside myself and find that part that knows that in my gratitude is my love, and in my love is life itself, and in life itself is God him or herself, whatever you and I conceive God to be.  In my thanks is the unity of the world, and if we all could dedicate ourselves more to thanks than to other, less productive, thoughts and feelings, we most certainly will go about our lives making this world a much, much better place.

Thank you!