One of the websites on my favorites list that I visit often, especially as Thanksgiving time approaches is www.gratefulness.org. It is the product of A Network For Grateful Living, an organization founded around the writings and philosophy of Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine Monk.

Every time I surf his site, I find something new. This time, for some reason, my attention was drawn to a topic I had not spotted before called “How do animals teach gratefulness?”

I suspect the “reason” I was drawn to this topic was sleeping in her crate behind me in my office. Tara, our 12 week old golden retriever puppy has been the center of attention since we brought her home on September 8th. Ever since April when our 13 year old golden, Sonja died we knew there would be another. This breed has a way of getting under your skin and even though she can't replace Sonja, Tara is following in her paw prints quite nicely.

So how do animals teach gratefulness? First it helps to understand what Brother David means by gratefulness: “…it is our full appreciation of something altogether unearned, utterly gratuitous -- life, existence, ultimate belonging – and this is the literal meaning of grate-full-ness. In a moment of gratefulness, you do not discriminate. You fully accept the whole of this given universe, as you are fully one with the whole.”

Sometimes he uses the term “great fullness” to describe this state of being. It is the unmistakable sense of being whole and complete, right now, lacking nothing. Right now, Tara is sound asleep, stretched out on her back, four paws in the air with her head on a soft toy. In the absence of abuse, dogs don’t dwell much on the past and the future means nothing to them.

They cause us to pause and consider how often we experience that same sense of completeness, of being fully one with the whole. Is my sense of wholeness tied to something that I think needs to happen in the future or is it something that I think I had in the past which is now gone?

Tara is content and complete just the way she is. She makes no distinctions. Her fur doesn’t need to be a different color, she doesn’t worry if her nose is too long or her tail is too short, she just experiences the perfection of this moment. Nothing needs to be added or taken away.

Although Tara still has some moments of fear and anxiety, she is quickly learning to trust that all of her physical needs will be anticipated and met. Dogs may not understand spiritual principles, but I believe that they are spiritual beings who instinctively know how to trust. What would it take for us to cultivate that same kind of trust and can we truly experience gratefulness without it?

Since we’re not dogs, we have to learn to rely on our understanding of spiritual principles. According to Eric Butterworth; “When you really know yourself as a spiritual being, you experience the fulfilling of the law, which rushes, streams and pours into you in terms of substance and supply and all that is required for success.”

Tara is a living example of gratefulness in the best sense of the word and we are thankful that she is here to be a demonstration of our spiritual principles. I could say something about dog spelled backwards, but that would be trite. Trite, but true. 

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