A man on NPR was talking about prayer a few years ago. He said that mostly now his only prayer is "Thank you."  Which seemed nice at first pass. But then left me feeling kind of icky. He was a professor somewhere up North. He probably lived in a brick and ivy town with a lovely wife and happy athletic kids destined for Yale. An old rich white guy has everything good. Who wouldn't be grateful for that life? And, well, isn't that just dandy for him? 

If that sounds kind of angry, it is. I'd been in an angry frame of mind for several years. Waiting for my luck to turn around didn't seem to be working. Practicing patience and meditating helped, but not enough. Woe was me. I traversed self pity and pain as calmly as possible, mindfully. Maybe all the mindfulness was trickling through the death soup of my thought process. Or perhaps the relentless repetition of pop music finally offered a gem that sunk deep enough into the mire of my thoughts. The radio kept singing, "If you want to change your life, you have to change your mind." Something definitely needed to change. My luck was for shit and I've always believed in luck.

It was 4:30 in the morning and I was driving to work, years later, when I got desperate enough to try changing my mind to change my life, deciding to jump on the Tilt-a-Tude and searching my internal database for something, anything, to be grateful about. Driving to work in a car is nice. It almost feels like riding a magic carpet. So I breathed out the words with doubt and a bit of hostility: "Thank you." I didn't allow myself to think about who or what might receive such a message. The fact is, I get to ride in a car to work. That makes my life easier than most. True, gasoline is evil. But I can not deny I am grateful to get to ride in cars.

Here is the thing about gratitude, and it happened with that first prayer, almost instantly. The moment you allow yourself to pray with gratitude, you get a simultaneous awareness of goodness that will start running toward your outer mental boundaries, if you let it. I get to ride in a car to work. Which saves an enormous amount of time and personal energy. Also, riding in a car is a spectacular thing to do. Its fast, there is wind, which you can even heat or cool. There is music. I mean, jeeze, how nice is that? A tiny moment of contentment sparked to life in me.

Practicing gratitude becomes the habit of noticing what is good, which is an inherently cheerful thing to do. It does not deny what is bad but offers a countering point of view about reality, to the relentless drone of negativity which resides so naturally in the human mind. Its a shame there is no way to discuss gratitude without sounding a bit twee and precious. But life is complex and can not be reduced, not even by death or violence, to all that is bad. You can not practice gratitude for a car ride without eventually having to acknowledge gratitude for the light in your children's eyes, for good food, for warmth, for an impulse to share, for love. It balloons quickly. And all that positivity rearranges boundaries, shifts vision, changes things. Whispering the words thank you into the void can change your life? How does that make sense? Are you talking to your higher self? Is it God's work? Is it mathematical? I call all of these things God, but when you are desperate, in pain, and looking for change the answer hardly matters. The effect is bigger than vocabulary or dogma.

My boss slammed into work in a rage the other day. At seven in the morning. Which, no surprise, caused some bad things to happen---escalating frustrations, bleeding, employees considering quitting.  I don't know what was going on for her. But I know that moment of slamming in a rage is universally human. I was busy milking cows as the drama unfolded in the milking parlor, so I could not walk away. Trapped, I almost sort of panicked. Then something new and strange happened inside me. I grabbed for gratitude. I said to myself--and it all happened in a flash--think of something you are grateful for. My family's faces filled my mind and I was instantly aware of what is most important in my life. Which allowed me to stay separate from the anger in the room. Which changed everything. Finding nothing to spark her anger against, my boss left.

An hour later she walked back into the parlor and said with a small smile, "Good morning, how are you today." We had a nice productive work day and the rage was past. It didn't stick to me or her or the cows. The practice of remembering, in an active way, everything I am most grateful for allowed me to side step a lot of pain, which served more than just me. More love and less anger happened.

I will be whispering gratitude the rest of my life. If its mostly now your only prayer, let it be.