June Cotner - Gratitude Prayers: Prayers, Poems, and Prose for Everyday Thankfulness

thanks I am thankful for the contributors who sent me eloquent gems for this book. Im also grateful to everyone who submitted to this book. Your words inspire me! This is now the sixth book Ive created for Andrews McMeel Publishing. Through the creation of all of these books, my editor has been Patty Rice. Patty, do you remember about eight years ago at BookExpo America you told me that you wanted to do a book on joy? Well, the kernel of your idea grew into Gratitude Prayers ! Denise Marcil and Anne Marie OFarrell at Marcil-OFarrell Literary: I love our creative brainstorming sessions and I greatly appreciate all of the good ideas you both bring to my work. I am forever grateful to my husband, Jim, and my many relatives and friends who encourage and inspire me every day.

And to God, I live in thankfulness for all of the blessings in my life. letter to readers Gratitude Prayers was a treasure to create! I noticed I was smiling throughout all the stages of this book, from the first idea to the final manuscript. As I read the hundreds of submissions for Gratitude Prayers , the thoughts and reflections offered by contributors gave me an even deeper appreciation for the gift of life. Is there a link between gratitude and prayer? I think theres a big one. The more we focus on the joy in our lives, the more satisfied we feel. Studies by Robert A.

Emmons, the worlds leading scientific expert on gratitude, have shown that feelings of gratitude led to more positive emotional states and inspired people to be more helpful to others. He found that people who regularly practice grateful thinking can increase their level of happiness by as much as 25 percent. In his book Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier , he encourages people to learn prayers of gratitude. Praying guides us through both good times and bad. During periods when its hard to keep a positive attitude, you can turn to the chapter Faith & Courage for ideas on how to get through difficult circumstances. If your perspective becomes bleak, prayer can turn you around.

The writers in Gratitude Prayers share how to seek out tiny moments of joy, which will point the way toward finding the good in every situation. With Gratitude Prayers, you will become a noticer of people and surroundings that delight you. The selections in this book will encourage you to pay attention to things that make you laugh, the places that nourish you, the loved ones who inspire and guide you, and caring strangers who bring blessings to your days. I encourage you to leave Gratitude Prayers in a place where you will see it throughout the day. Make it your book; feel free to make notes in the margins where you can date and note how a particular prayer or poem helped you. You can use a selection as a springboard to reflect on what was good that day.

Using Gratitude Prayers will nudge you toward a deeper gratefulness for life. Over time, finding gratitude will become a habit and a powerful force for influencing those around you. Dont we all love to be around a person who is genuinely grateful? As you go through your day, may the selections in Gratitude Prayers help you recognize the sacred in the ordinarythe moments that bring you everyday thankfulness. It is my hope that this collection will serve as a reminder to continually seek an attitude of gratitude in every situation. one SIMPLE PLEASURES All that we behold is full of blessings. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (17701850) M IRACLES (Excerpt) Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan...

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds... Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring... To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same... What stranger miracles are there? WALT WHITMAN (18191892) H OLY T OMATOES I pluck tomatoes from the vines, feel them sun-warmed and firm in my hands. Such gifts arriving in our daily dirt. Light pours through the window as I rinse them in the sink.

Water droplets shimmer, poised on skins red as love. I am held here, like the dust motes floating in a beam of light, caught in that sunstream. How the world offers itself up. Sunlight spills through the window and the tomatoes glow, opulent spheres each one round, full, complete. GINNY LOWE CONNORS S URPRISED Like a baby seeing her shadow for the first time, we notice joy. DENISE LEVERTOV Each morning I wake with excitement overwhelmed by the leaves turning outside the window, the scent of fall, the slant of morning light, the books on my nightstand filled with promise the books on the coffee table in the living room where you sit already awake in the unfolding of day reading or writing, coffee in hand, looking up and smiling, as you do. MICHAEL S. MICHAEL S.

GLASER S IMPLE P LEASURES I took a hot bath last night. As the tub filled, I marveled at the process. I was grateful. I did not have to fetch the water, Nor build a fire to warm it. I did not have to carry it, Heavy, one bucket at a time, Taking care not to slosh it, Up the flights of stairs to the second-floor tub. I simply turned a handle.

There it poured, Water, flowing uphill, Hot, clean, refreshing, abundant. Thank you, God, for simple pleasures That really arent that simple, after all. SUSANNE WIGGINS BUNCH G ENTLE T HINGS Thank You for gentle thingsthe glow of morning light, the swaying of a towering tree, the humming of a tiny bee, the soft approach of night. THOMAS L. REID S UNDAY A FTERNOON AT M UNSINGER G ARDENS We sit on a blanket on the grass and listen to jazz as bits of fluff fall from the cottonwood trees, a hint of snow on this sunny summer day. Six ducklings follow their mother out of the underbrush and topple into the Mississippi River.

The feathers of the mallards nearby, all flamboyant greens and purples; sunlight glittering on the deep blue of the water. The mother duck squawks and flaps her wings until the other ducks have scattered. Then she swims serenely around the ducklings, ignoring the rustle of wings around her as if nothing at all has happened. I feed the baby from a cup of vanilla ice cream and he gives me a kiss thats both sweet and pleasantly sticky. The people behind us are talking over the music, the grass is damp under our blanket. I feel so happy that its almost painful.

Sunday afternoon, the river shining silver and blue in the sun, ducklings tracing lazy circles in the water, shade trees on either side, and in the distance, almost too far away to see, the bridge leading back toward home. LEAH BROWNING H APPINESS She loves West Tenth Street on an ordinary summer morning. MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM, THE HOURS And I love this ordinary summer afternoon, sitting under my cherry tree full of overripe fruit, too much for us to pick, an abbondanza of a tree, I love this dark gray catbird singing its awkward song, and the charcoal clouds promising rain they dont deliver. I love the poem Ive been trying to write for months, but cant; I love the way its going nowhere at all. I love the dried grass that crackles when you walk on it, leached of color, its own kind of fire. Way off in the hedgerow, the musical olio of dozens of birds, each singing its own song, each beating its own measure.