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Dear Subscriber First Name, Lately, I have found myself intrigued about what it means for something to be “unconditional.” Lots of talk about unconditional love is bantered about these days and its promise was a significant influence in my 20’s when I mistook the idea to mean staying committed to a relationship no matter how I was treated. I was thankful to eventually learn that you may love someone’s divine essence no matter what, but real-world relationships have important conditions. A life-changing revelation, yes, but one that still left me pondering. When I first met Br. David Steindl-Rast, his teachings about gratefulness spoke deeply to me of unconditionality as they offered a possibility that liberated me from what I had always felt was the tyranny of happiness. His quotes, “It’s not happiness that makes us grateful, it’s gratefulness that makes us happy,” and “Joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens,” were revelatory, as an ability to feel consistently happy had been elusive for me. I felt something akin to happiness, but when asked how I was, I could not respond with sincerity that I was “happy.” And certainly not all the time. I was busy trying to figure out the meaning of life, reading Eastern philosophy, and writing bad poetry. Growing up in a culture at a time when the yellow smiley face was in vogue, the pursuit of happiness could be one’s sole purpose in life, and being “happy” seemed like something that, with enough money, was for sale to the highest and most persistent bidders, left me - and a lot of us - feeling “other,” and other than what was understood as happy. As we have come to understand them in our current cultural lexicon, both gratitude and happiness are reactions and feelings that arise in us when things go our way. When everything lines up in our favor. When we get a string of green lights and the perfect parking space. When the sun is shining and it’s 76 degrees with a light breeze. For some of us, it’s when news headlines speak of peace, justice, love…anything that gives us hope. But the more we hitch our well-being wagons to external conditions outside our control, the more we give our inner agency away, and the more we unwittingly live with an inner tumult that matches the tumult of the world outside us. I am increasingly interested in the unconditional qualities of well-being that we can cultivate and retain in the face of life as it is. Not so as to build a bigger, comfier hole in the sand into which we can stick our heads. But to allow us to have the bandwidth for greater resilience, investment, and engagement. So as to have the capacity for more presence, responsiveness, and creativity when we are fortunate enough to have life unfurl another day before us. So as to be able to fill our hearts with love that does not run out and does not deplete us; love that is a force for healing. For me, gratefulness is this big and this deep. It is this unconditional. When we have an experience of gratefulness, it catalyzes a flow of appreciation and awe, compassion and interconnection that is sustaining and activating at the same time. It cracks our hearts open, and reminds us to focus on what matters most and to make meaning of our moments, no matter what. Br. David’s simplest well-known quote about gratefulness may be among his most profound: “It is enough to be grateful for the next breath.” The most unconditional gift we have in our lives is the breath. Perhaps finding what is meaningful and miraculous in the simplest, most reliable things is what can fill us with a sense of unconditional well-being right up to our very last moment. My “no matter what” response to the question, “How are you?” can always find its truth in the response, “Grateful.” No matter the zillions of other things I may be feeling, gratefulness is always also alive in me. I am not grateful for every thing, but for every moment. For every breath. For every opportunity. For every iota of love made manifest in the world. How about you? If you are moved to share your thoughts on what qualities are unconditional for you, and/or what is intriguing to you about the concept, please be in touch. The museletter collection below and my website are offered to support you in being more unconditionally present for life. Please enjoy - and freely share - the gifts and invitations that are here. Thank you. With a grateful heart -
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