JUNE 12, 2001

WEB WATCH

On Thanksgiving, families stuffed with turkey and looking for a new way to get into the spirit of the day could turn to a just~launched Web site, www.gratefulness.org, the brainchild of Linda Fisher, a Buddhist who works as Web developer for Cornell University's School of industrial and Labor Relations; Br. David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk and author; and Daniel Uvanovic, a Yugoslavia-born software engineer.

Uvanovic told PW the site grew out of the team's shared sense that many of us too easily take our gifts for granted. They hope it will help people cultivate gratefulness as a spiritual discipline. "if you train yourself to notice and appreciate everything you have as a gift, then you can really enjoy each day, instead of constantly seeking more," said Uvanovic.

But cultivating gratefulness isn't merely about improving our interior lives. It also has social ramifications. Uvanovic hopes the site will help curb consumerism. "When people are grateful, they are satisfied with less," he noted. In a few weeks, the site will offer a new feature: Clean Up Your Neighborhood- Users will be encouraged to clean up a patch of their street or town and report back the results.

One of the site's most popular features has been an interactive activity. In the "Light a Candle" section, users see instructions to take a deep breath and "quiet your thoughts." Then dozens of candles - some lit, some unlit - appear on the screen. After clicking on an unlit candle, users are instructed to first "reflect for a moment on your reason" for lighting it. Then, after clicking the wick to "ignite" the flame, readers are invited to sit with their flickering candle as long as they wish.

"In many ways," said Uvanovic, "the ritual embodies the goals of the site: it is a meditative activity that helps people slow down, and candle-lighting is a tradition that resonates with people from any number of religious backgrounds." The Web site is advised by a team of mentors from a variety of spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhist priest and poet, Norman Fischer ("Success," Singing House Press, 2000) and author Huston Smith ("Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief," Harper, San Francisco, 2000).

The site, which got about 200,000 hits last month, isn't fully developed yet. Click on the link to book reviews and you see a message promising them soon. The site does currently feature a discussion by Brother David of his most popular books, "Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness," Paulist Press, 1984; "A Listening Heart: The Spirituality of Sacred Sensuousness," Crossroad/ Herder & Herder, 1999; and "Music of Silence: A Sacred journey through the Hours of the Day," Ulysses Press/Seastone, 1998.)