David Steindl-rast - A Good Day: A Gift of Gratitude

A Good Day

A GIFT OF GRATITUDE

Brother David Steindl-Rast

In collaboration with Louie Schwartzberg

STERLING ETHOS and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Text 2013 by Brother David-Steindl-Rast
Photographs by Louis Schwartzberg and Blacklight Films
Afterword by Louie Schwartzberg

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4549-0799-2

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Contents

Dedicated to

A NETWORK FOR GRATEFUL LIVING
(Gratefulness.org)

To my parents, Joseph and Eva, who were Holocaust survivors. They taught me to appreciate the little things in life, like food on the table, a roof over your head, and the blessings of having children. I am very grateful to the millions of viewers who shared the Gratitude v ideo and made it a v iral Internet sensation, which opened the door to this book being published.

Louie Schwartzberg

How a Brief Message Reached Millions

In 2006, friends of Benedictine monk, author, and lecturer Br. David Steindl-Rast invited him to record two short meditations about gratefulness, to be set to music by award-winning composer Gary Malkin. We simply intended to include these pieces in a promotional CD about the organization that Br. David co-founded, A Network for Grateful Living (ANG*L).

The meditations, spontaneously spoken, flowed from a heart honed by decades of prayer, practice, and sharing. Br. David offers this description of what happened: It was early on a bright California morning. Gary invited me to sit down in front of the microphone and wish an imaginary audience a good day. After a moments silence, I simply spoke from my heart. This was it. No re-takes. No additions. What you hear is that mornings message.

The meditations were given over to Gary, who scored chords, textures, and rhythms directly to the intimate tone of Br. Davids voice, drawing forth all the soulfulness embedded in his words. We were quick to notice the inspirational potential of these montages. With the help of radio and television producer Jan St. John, who taped the original recordings in the studio of Chris and Barbara Wilson of Mill Valley, California, we started exploring their broader potential as YouTube videos that could be embedded on our website, www.gratefulness.org, which provides free interactive services for the practice of grateful living to people around the world. Chris served as executive producer, Jan as producer, and video editor Alejandro Torres matched the audio with photos selected with exquisite care by ANG*Ls Community Development Coordinator Margaret Wakeley.

The results had that intangible extra ingredientone that emerges when talented individuals work together towards a greater good. In June 2007, we gave birth to A Good Day; another video, Giver of All Good Gifts, followed at Thanksgiving.

These videos, especially A Good Day, rapidly garnered a strong following on the Internet. With very little promotion, within two weeks it had been viewed by four thousand people. Before long, requests started pouring in for DVDs and an MP4. Margaret had her hands full responding to emails we received, such as these:

Please help. I am a Buddhist chaplain to four prisons in the U.K. The prisoners I see all lack gratitude, for obvious reasons. Some are very damaged. But I feel that this can be turned around by cultivating gratefulness. Where can I obtain a DVD copy of A GOOD DAY?

I work for the Canadian Institute of Natural and Integrative Medicine, and we are launching an online program for people experiencing depression. One of the videos that was chosen to be used in the program is A Good Day with Brother David. People found it inspiring and useful for those who are struggling.

With all my heart, I thank you for the two DVDs of Brother David. Im so delighted to have these films for use in the Living Spiritual Elders Project!

We will be using this video clip to help prepare our students for a silent meditation walk.

I am a leader in a health care organization and I will be sharing this video at leadership, staff, and physician meetings for the next few months. My hope is that by encouraging openness, authenticity, and gratefulness, we will level the hierarchy that can sometimes get in the way of ensuring absolute safety for our patients and staff each and every time we provide care.

This year we have adopted a new fund-raising model and did our first fund-raising event (a breakfast gathering) and had 150 people attend. We used A Good Day for the benediction/ invocation before breakfast and it was very well received. I am certain it is one of the reasons that our event was so successful!

In 2010, Gary Malkin approached us to secure a release for Br. Davids spoken word on the audio track. This release allowed Louie Schwartzberg, with whom Gary had been working, to proceed with a film that incorporated Br. Davids voice and Garys music as key soundtrack components. Soon people from all over the world started sending us a link to an eloquently moving TED lecture that contained gorgeous film footage by Louie overlaid with music by Gary Malkin and with Br. Davids voice from a A Good Day. Thus began further collaboration towards the creation of the book you now hold in your hands.

As of this writing, the sound track that Br. David and Gary created has, in various forms, been heard by some four million people around the world. Some people like it so much that they post their own set of pictures with it on YouTube. A psychiatrist prescribes A Good Day to his patients as daily reading. It has been used in churches, with chronic-pain patients, for organizational effectiveness groups, in a compassionate care section for young health professionals, to support ecological sustainability, by the Mind & Life Institute with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with hospice volunteers, in courses on prayer, with grieving teenagers the list goes on and on. Perhaps most profoundly of all, it is used by individuals on their own paths towards wholeness. Since it is for the healing of each of us and our earth that these words and their accompanying music came into being, it is fitting to let the voices of those influenced by them have the closing say:

I woke this morning not even wanting to get out of bed because of the turmoil in my life at this time. My dearest lifelong friend has been diagnosed with the second melanoma, another close friend has a wife recently discovered to have cancer, and Im fighting my own battle with greatly reduced mobility and several treatments a week for that. I came to the computer to see if anyone else had written a concerned note for my friend of all but four years of my life. What I found instead was astounding. The Gratefulness.org newsletter and the invitation to view a video about A Good Day waited in the inbox. I hastily skimmed the email and went to Gratefulness and turned on the video. The words and pictures touched me in a way few things have. All I could think to do was quickly thank God for your ministry and then let the sights and healing words wash over me. I wept almost the whole way through it.