Centering Ritual: Gratitude
Dr. Elías Ortega and faithing the moment (Week 3)
Image: Chumphon Whangchom
“An offering for you...For the next three weeks...I would like to share a short centering ritual. Each will center around a theme’...#FaithingForward”
WEEK 3
GRATITUDE
“New rituals and ceremonies are needed to make sacred space wherever we are.”
—E. Ortega, Facebook, 6 April 2020
DAY 1
GRATITUDE FOR THE SELF
Illustration: Ellis Rosen/Paris Review
Poetry Rx: You Will Love Again the Stranger Who Was Your Self by Claire Schwartz
In the Paris Review column “Poetry Rx,” readers write in with a specific emotion and a resident poet prescribes the perfect poems to match. Claire Schwartz was on line for the week of April 19, 2018 .
DAY 2
GRATITUDE FOR NON-HUMAN COMPANIONS
Comfort Animal by Joy Ladin
From the sequence “Shekhinah Speaks”
Comfort, comfort my people ...
—Isaiah 40:1
A voice says, “Your punishment has ended.”
You never listen to that voice. You really suck
at being comforted.
Another voice says, “Cry.”
That voice always gets your attention,
keeps you thinking
about withered flowers and withering grass
and all the ways you’re like them.
Hard to argue with that.
DAY 3
GRATITUDE FOR THE OTHERS
Lockdown by Fr. Richard Hendrick, OFM
Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family around them…
DAY 4
GRATITUDE FOR THE ANCESTORS
From Sweet Honey on the Rock’s 1980 Live LP, Good News
