Social Graces, Gratitude, Thanks be to God, and Resilience.

The other day I was engaged in a great conversation with a couple of Lutheran Pastors.  We were talking about the power of gratitude expressed and received for enhancing the lives of people in a congregation.  One of the pastors said that she had read that our country is loosing an understanding of the importance of social graces.   She went on to wonder if not only may expressing gratitude be one of those disappearing social graces, but the loss may be much more severe than we realize.  

·      Might we need gratitude expressed and received in our lives in a way that we don’t really understand in a conscious manner? 

·      Is there something deeper, something really important emotionally and spiritually in us (humans) that is related to our sense of gratitude?  

This natural segue into the core of religion may be more powerful than most of us understand.   Who out there has some reflections on the psychological/spiritual relationship between truly meaning our common expression “Thanks be to God” and our own sense of resilience in the world as we age? 

We know that the psychological benefits for us of expressing gratitude to a friend are dependent in part on the willingness of our friend to show appreciation for our expressions of “thanks”.  How does this important reciprocal dynamic play out as we “Thank God for ‘the meaningful’ in our life”?

Bruce