The first two years of surviving cancer were measured in minutes, days, and weeks. Minutes were both ecstatic and excruciating, allowing me to notice an emotional continuum I had never before experienced. Days were strings of consecutive moments: each morning’s awakening an epiphany — blinking my eyes, running my hands over my face and neck just to convince myself it was truly still me, incarnate. Each night marked a victory and an exhausted prayer for another day. Weeks encompased seven days of revelation. And then I finally began to think in months. They became my measure to calculate hope for survival and a big leap from counting the hours when I was going through treatment. But a year? A year had come to feel like a thousand months.
At first, there was a palpable intensity to my moments as they were focused in such detail on the opportunity of living and the possibility of dying. Everything was foreground. Everything was lived in the now — unbearably urgent and unsustainably vivid. But as the weeks turned into months and 12 months became my first year, I started to think of cancer more like a chronic disease — one whose absence, presence, or possibility would keep me company for as long as I lived. I reconciled myself to there not being a cure but, instead, opportunities to heal and live every day.
When I reached the two-year survival mark and got a clear CT scan, I had a party. We celebrated the fact that I had reached a hopeful juncture and was able to wait a full six months between scans. But it was disorienting. What to do with all that time? Even if I counted the prep, recovery, and waiting period for results from each scan as taking about a month of my life, I now had ten whole months out of every year that I would not have to plan to go to the hospital.
I wrote this in a letter to friends and family: In late summer, I had my two-year check-up at the hospital. It was, I think, the most nervous I have felt. It struck me then, and still does, that to long for life so fully, to want it with all your heart, is the victory that can never be taken away. And it is made all that much more poignant by choosing to live in a way that — no matter when the end — we have the most to lose. To constrict, to turn away, to close our doors so that the losing of life or love will be less painful, so that there will be less longed for and therefore less lost — this is the life that fear beckons us to live — the life that, while feeling safe, is not truly lived at all.
I had focused so intensely on living one moment at a time and trying to make it to my two-year anniversary that I had, for all intents and purposes, forgotten to plan my life. I marked my calendar with hospital tests and doctor appointments like some people do their meal planning. Then I came to a cliff of sorts and hovered at the edge. I had spent so long trying to stay alive, and now I needed to learn to live in a way that allowed for the possibility of a future — even a near future.
What does one do with an unexpected second chance? I knew that there was no going back. My old life was gone, and even though some of my survivor buddies wanted nothing more than to rejoin the trajectory of their previous life and be their old selves again, I could not fathom such a possibility. Nothing about me fit into my old attire — literally or figuratively. I wanted my life to reflect and offer up my learning in some significant way, but I did not know what that was.
Before getting sick, I had been working in the social change nonprofit sector. I was accustomed to having a professional life that reflected my values, but it had become harder to know what that meant. How had my values changed? What had I learned? Who was I professionally after this long work hiatus and all that I had been through? And how would I apply for a job when I was not sure I would be alive in a year or two? How could I sign an employment contract in good conscience? How would I navigate questions about my long-term goals? How did I ever do any of those things before?
Not having answers, I did the only thing I could imagine: I applied for work at my local hospice. Just as moving to the woods surrounded me with the wide-open questions and answers of the land, I knew that going to work for hospice would put me among people who could accompany me in the conversations and commitments that had become most meaningful. My approach to social change had morphed. While I had previously focused on systemic change, I now saw the ways that individuals, friends, families, and communities formed their own systems that could transform within a healing death experience. It meant the world to me that people who chose to work for hospice could hold space for the fact that I had been awakened to my mortality, and all of what that might mean. Also, I had come to value hospice as a radical intervention in the medical system. Over the years I had been sick, in treatment and then in recovery, I had seen clearly the ripple effects of a death with hospice and one without it.
Surviving cancer made me want to channel my good fortune and gratitude into service. Focusing on supporting people at their end of life was the most worthwhile way that I could imagine turning my experience to benefit others. Grateful for all the love and care I had received when the quantity of my life was in question, I was moved to help offer quality of life to others.
Gratefulness will be that full response which releases the full power of my compassion. Gratefulness is creative and overflows into action. — Brother David Steindl-Rast
Suffering has long existed in our world, and along with it the sources of that suffering, from individualized to institutionalized. Whether we have experienced discrimination, violence, or poverty ourselves, we are all impacted. Some of us sadly more than others. Many of us experience the struggles of the human condition both externally and from within. We want desperately to make a positive difference in the world — yet, facing suffering and so many competing needs, our feelings of heartbreak, outrage, or powerlessness often lead to exhaustion or overwhelm. While trying to do the right thing, we can perseverate about what to do without actually doing much at all. Or we try to do so much that we end up overwrought and depleted. Even if we know that we want major change to happen, we might lack clarity about how to focus our energy and actions to have the positive impact we desire.
When we deeply feel the hurts of the world, it can be hard to know how to make a positive difference. How do we best care for our diverse global family? How do we offer healing and repair to others, especially when we ourselves feel in need? How do we act when our hearts are so broken and the world feels so broken? What do we do when we do not know what to do?
Grateful living offers us significant support and direction. The more we allow our hearts to expand and feel inextricably tied to the places and people of this world, the more we will be moved to take a stand on behalf of what we value. Our work is to befriend ourselves, to know our essential belonging, to keep opening ourselves to include more of the world as our beloved own, and to learn to follow our hearts as they move us toward action.
Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So, go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you. — L. R. Knost
There are days when being awake to the conditions of our world is more than we feel able to bear. We may be called to face outrage, fear, overwhelm, heartbreak, and powerlessness — a difficult mix of feelings even on a good day. We might feel like we want to wait until our grief and anger dissipate before we act — but we could be waiting forever. While our feelings can be overpowering, they can also motivate important action and change. We need to remember to be grateful for our ability to feel. Brokenheartedness means we are alive. Empathy is a blessing that connects us to others. It is a privilege to be informed and to have a sense of protective outrage. We are fortunate to be able to notice and accept with open eyes and an open heart that there are things that are unacceptable. Not to feel all of this would be a true brokenness. Holding gratitude for our deepest feelings is critical as we approach being present to what breaks our hearts open.
In many ways, becoming present to our hurting world is similar to coming into greater presence with ourselves when we are suffering, and others when they are. We tune in, we lean in, and we listen in. We hold the awareness of a hurting world with the same qualities of attention we bring to appreciating our emotional landscapes and unleashing the gifts of our relationships: compassion, curiosity, humility, generosity of spirit. We make ourselves available and allow ourselves to be impacted.
As Tennessee Williams says, “The world will have its way with you. We are saved only by love — love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”
One of the gifts of love is that it is a renewable resource, an endless spring of nourishment. Love is a force that motivates action, and we know well how to heed it as a source of inspiration. So let’s pledge to be present to love. To feel vulnerable, with love. To grieve, with love. To be heartbroken, with love. To be afraid, with love. To be shattered by love. To be grateful for love. And to keep listening to this source, feeling and trusting what is called forth and called for — what we, with our broken hearts, can do from love to help heal our hurting world.
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What can you allow love to do through you today to make a difference in the areas where you see or feel hurting?
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How could you make it an art to approach everything you see and do from your heart, your art? How might this change how you approach what you do?
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. — Howard Thurman
There are many ways to catalyze our energies toward social change. The bumps in the road lie not in finding sources of inspiration or provocation, but in finding forms of action that bring us most alive and that we can sustain in the face of all the ways we will be tested to stay the course. What the world needs is for us to be awake and enlivened. Love will take us the rest of the way.
Taking action on behalf of the larger world reveals our essential belonging and acknowledges our interconnection. Acting for the common good also works to establish our autonomy and lift up our unique contributions and values. To act is to accept the proposition that we each matter and make a difference, no matter what we are told to the contrary. Life is messy and our decisions often imperfect, but in times like these, perfect is the enemy of the good.
The starfish parable, created by anthropologist Loren Eiseley, reminds us that individual gestures do matter: An old man is walking on a beach one day when he sees a boy repeatedly picking things up from the sand and tossing them into the ocean. The man approaches and asks the boy what he is doing. The boy replies that he is throwing starfish into the sea so they will not die in the sun. Looking at all the starfish and the miles of beach stretched out ahead of them, the old man suggests that, despite all his effort, the boy could not make much of a difference. The boy listens politely, bends down to pick up another starfish, and tosses it into the sea, saying, “I made a difference to that one.” The next morning the old man could be seen alongside the boy tossing starfish into the water.
Our unequivocal gratitude for the preciousness of the world makes us want to protect it, one starfish, tree, person, community, initiative, or day at a time. Gratitude awakens respect and responsibility. We feel our interconnectedness, and the pain and beauty of belonging. Being grateful in difficult times, we can feel the suffering of others, make use of our blessings, and be compelled to act from a place that is engaged, self-responsible, and resourced. Grateful living helps by steadying us and bringing perspective, while also freeing and moving us to act in such a way that can help to bend history, even ever so slightly, in the direction of love.
These may be tough times to feel grateful. But denying all that is worthy of our gratitude does not protect us — nor does it help anyone or anything. Living gratefully is not about being Pollyannaish or putting our head in the sand. Gratefulness faces squarely that wonder and suffering live side by side, as do disaster and beauty. Grateful living helps us to never forget that we make the biggest difference through remaining connected to what we treasure, what we want to protect, and what truly matters most.
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When you feel grateful for someone or something, how does that inspire a feeling of respect? What kinds of actions does this inspire?
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How does a sense of responsibility support your ability to be responsive?
In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment. — Maxine Hong Kingston
The needs of the world are a cry we cannot afford to ignore. The needs of our relationships and communities call for more compassion and engagement. The needs of our own hearts compel us to crack open and connect. Making a meaningful difference requires values-aligned, heart-aligned action. This is why grateful living is so promising — it offers an accessible path to transform our relationship to life, and in so doing to contribute to transforming life for others. Grateful living asks us to stop and experience our heart’s truth, to look in order to notice the opportunities we have at hand to make a difference, and to go by taking action that can help foster a peaceful, loving world that is sacred for all.
Tapping into our hearts and listening deeply, we may be called to do something we have never done before. Now is the time to muster our creativity and courage. Doing something — anything — that expresses our gratitude and clarity of heart is very moving; it will move those around us, and perhaps the dial of the world.
When activism unites us with our heartfelt values and joys, we find ease and pleasure in the doing, making it more likely we can stay the course. Love to make art? Paint posters and postcards. Love to write? Blogs and poems are forms of activism, too. Love to be quiet? Sit vigil. Love to connect with people? Organize with like-minded others. Movements for change succeed and thrive when many different kinds of people can find ways to express themselves. We are always in need of new forms of creative activism as the conditions around us transform. The important thing is for each of us to do something meaningful to take a stand when our values and hearts are ignited.
What if we allowed the vastness of love to point and lead the way? What if we let gratitude be an activating experience that leads us to joyful, passionate action? What if we tune in to our fierce hearts with regard for ourselves and each other, our ancestors, and future generations? Let us raise our individual and collective voices in a hopeful, loving chorus that drowns out efforts to silence or erase any of us.
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How could living and acting from gratitude make a healing difference in your community? What might that look like?
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When you act based on what you are grateful for, how are your actions likely to be different than when you act from anger or obligation? How might your actions be experienced differently?
May you taste the colors of sunset,
may you touch the chorus of dawn,
may your eyes turn toward the beauty
even when it’s gone.
May you weave a path of blessing
through ecstasy and grief.
May you tend the flame within you
may you feed it with belief.
May you find yourself in strangers
and meet them within you.
May you trust that we are windows
the world is peering through.
May you linger in each moment,
receiving with your heart
the gift of possibilities
that presence can impart.
May you become a portal
to the love behind your toil,
may you become a silence
within the world’s turmoil.
May the prayers that grow within you
bloom in many lands.
We are woven of connections
and peace is in our hands.
— Bernadette Miller
The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. — Nelson Henderson
There is a wake-up call happening in our world. Forces are at work that threaten our social covenants, civil rights, and diverse communities — indeed, the safety of our planet and global family. Forces for social change, justice, love, and peace are also at work. If we value living in a democracy, then we have to stay awake and remain at work for it. Participation matters. Showing up for our beliefs matters. Taking a stand matters.
Grateful living invites us to connect with the things that matter most, and to recognize these commitments as an integral part of our ongoing effort to make life better for all. It stimulates our inherent passion to preserve and protect what we value, and therefore to empathize and align with the needs and values of others. It reminds us of all that we have going for us, and all the ways that we can leverage our good fortune. Grateful living helps us to sustain our actions on behalf of the natural world and human community by continually reminding and supporting us to recognize that we are part of something far larger than ourselves. It offers the nourishment of a consistent wellspring of principles and practices that can truly guide and sustain us in the sacred work, and the very long haul, of loving this world.
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May you hold the needs of the world with respect and responsibility.
Stop. Look. Go. Practice
Even superheroes chart their course. Take a moment to pause and reflect before moving forward with intention. By connecting to our breath and gratitude first, we are better able to find our focus and become more strategic in our actions.
When we look outside ourselves, we recognize that we are not alone; we are one among many who are part of a long history of activism and change. We can gain inspiration from remembering that through ongoing, collective action people have made a difference. With an expanded gaze we are able to learn from those who came before us and those who surround us, and we can find the hope we need, in ourselves and each other, to do what we feel called to do.
Stop: Slow down and become cognizant of the intense privileges and blessings of being awake and alive. Claiming the gifts of our lives is not an indulgence. Instead, we are reminded of what we have going for us that many in the world do not. Stopping helps us connect with the deepest truths and concerns of our hearts, to become grounded in our bodies and in our awareness. This perspective allows us to shine more brightly with a sense of possibility and responsibility to improve life for others, in the ways that we can.
Look: Notice your surroundings and the resources and passions with which you can make a difference. Looking within helps you to connect to your sense of purpose and your fundamental principles, rather than feeling scattered and reactive. Firmly believing in the sacredness of your values, and being clear about what you love and cherish, you can stand your ground with integrity and resolve, and be enlivened in the process.
Go: When you actively take a stand for the things for which you are most grateful, your actions are sourced differently. Committed to what you treasure most deeply, you can uncover reserves of vigor and clarity to fuel and sustain your activism. Actions that arise from grateful awareness are creative, relevant, effective, sustaining, and meaningful. Find the issues that ignite your heart’s concern, the paths of expression that are most meaningful for you, and go forth.
Perspective Prompts
There is a place of balance between feeling that we have all the time in the world and no time at all, between feeling overwhelmed to the point of hysteria and overwhelmed to a state of lethargy. None of these extremes activate us toward sustainable engagement. When we are awakened to poignancy rather than panic — knowing that life is meaningful and that time may be finite but still offers spaciousness within which we can act — we are able to come alive to this moment, this human family, this planet.
Allow yourself to feel the fleetingness of time and the preciousness of all that you love to the precise degree that it moves and activates you to offer your creative, compassionate gifts.
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I follow the cries and joys of my heart to meet those of the world.
As we feel ourselves more interconnected, we discover a responsibility for being one with the natural world and human family. Doubting this preserves the status quo. Believing that we each have the capacity for impact has motivated millions of individuals to do what they could throughout history. Thoughtful, committed citizens have long made it their business to change the world for the better. Surprising acts have changed the course of history: the stand-offs in Tiananmen Square, the opposition to apartheid in South Africa, the pipeline protests at Standing Rock, the nonviolent resistance of the American civil rights movement. The collective includes each of us.
Consider yourself one among many thoughtful, committed citizens, who — in small ways, over time — have shifted the dial. Surprise yourself with your vision and courage.
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When I am moved to act, I am part of a long-time, vast movement for change.
It is only when we claim the blessings we have that we can make use of them to have an impact — not from a place of guilt but from responsibility. Our ordinary is truly someone else’s extraordinary. If we have money (even a little) and we are thankful, we can put it to use and share it. If we have a body that works, we can count ourselves fortunate, help get things done, help others, and offer care. If we have education, strengths, or skills, they are gifts longing to be uplifted and of use.
Think about how resources that are sufficient in your life could be of use to the larger world. Only when we recognize and fully acknowledge our plenty can we make a difference with what we have.
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My good fortune can be of service in meeting the unmet needs of others.
Times of societal upheaval call on us to know what we stand for and compel us to act with courage on behalf of those values. When our core values are in discord with what we see around us, it is vital to deepen our commitment to our principles, to make sure that they are explicit and unequivocal in our hearts, articulated in our lives, and expressed with clarity when called for. Knowing what we stand for helps us to know very clearly what we will not stand for, and vice versa. Tending to the principles we appreciate most is empowering and enlightening.
Live like a tuning fork, able to sense whether what is happening around you is in or out of harmony with what you value. Take a stand when your core principles are compromised.
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I can lean into the heart of my core values for clarity and conviction.
Being of service can be a source of profound joy. Love is a verb — it wants to be active. It wants to heal. It wants to be witnessed, felt, demonstrated, shared, and flung and sung from treetops. Love does not want to be subordinated to grief and hurt; it wants to be part of it. Love is longing to be woven into the entire emotional fabric of our lives. Love wants the opportunity to make a difference, and when we offer love to others, it changes the landscape of our reality. Love is a transformative power.
Extend yourself creatively and joyfully with a thoughtful gesture of love to someone who is in need, and notice the shifts that take place within you, and around you. Extend yourself to communities in need to make an even bigger difference.
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Love is a verb. Serve is a verb. Enjoy is a verb. I love making verbs active in my life.