We’ve all seen the news. 💔
The horrific unfoldings that happened this week, and the images and reports surfacing from the Middle East leave a tremendous weight of heaviness.
To sit with this month’s theme in the midst of it all feels futile and cruel—how does one explore the soul work of gratitude when the world feels so haunted by hate?
But like a ray of light, breaking through the darkness, I stumbled upon a story of hope that reminded me (and I pray it reminds you, too) that one, small act of gratitude can ignite hearts of gratitude in us all.
Her name is Maya Alper.
Like thousands of other concert-goers attending the Tribe of Nova music festival, Maya was at the open event, near the Gaza border, to attend and celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Shortly after dawn, however, she heard air raid sirens cut through the music as rockets blasted through the air.
Sprinting to her car and speeding toward the main road, she soon found herself in gridlock traffic as hundreds of panicked exiters all tried to escape in the same direction.
As she sat parked at a standstill, contemplating what to do next, she saw gunmen walking through the rows of cars shooting drivers mercilessly and without hesitation.
Abandoning her car, she beelined for a cluster of bushes and plunged into a tangle of shrubs. There, hiding as best as she could, she witnessed fellow strangers gunned down at point-blank range through a peephole of thorns.
For over six hours, Maya hid. And waited.
As Hamas militants continued to throw grenades and spray gunfire, and as she sometimes heard them speaking to one another right beside her, she hid; she breathed; she prayed — ”breathing and praying in every way I knew possible.”
As a devotee to yoga and meditation, Maya said, “Every time I thought of anger, or fear, or revenge, I breathed it out. I tried to think of what I was grateful for — the bush that hid me so well that even birds landed on it, the birds that were still singing, the sky that was so blue.”
Friends, as you explore your own soul work of gratitude today, do not get lost in the swirl of heaviness and hate for whatever the news, and/or your circumstances may be leading you to feel, rather, may you choose your “moments like Maya” instead.
Breathe.
Pray.
Practice gratitude.
—With Joy
Source: Israeli Survivors Recount Terror at Music Festival by Castanet News, October 9, 2023.
Pause for Prayer
Source: Specific Gratitude, How to Maximize Appreciation, by Scott Crabtree, via Happy Brain Science.
Pause for Practice
Source: Specific Gratitude, How to Maximize Appreciation, by Scott Crabtree, via Happy Brain Science.
Pause for Blessing
Source: The Cure for Sorrow — A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief, by Jan Richardson, Enduring Blessing, pp. 111-112.
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