Brightening the Blahs

Bored by January? Chafing at the narrow confines of bad weather? Depressed by the news?  Crazy with cabin fever? Have I got an answer for you! The free film “Gratitude Revealed,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gN0pMCHte4

Many are already familiar with the work on gratitude pioneered by David Steindl-Rast, OSB. As a young Austrian during World War II, he was hidden from the Nazis by his mother, and his family wondered if they’d starve to death. He differentiates happiness from joy, which “doesn’t depend on what happens.” Those who aren’t familiar might try his website: grateful.org or book: Gratitude: the Heart of Prayer. Based on that solid foundation, the film soars into stunning photography around the world, fascinating interviews, and a breathtaking display of what Catholics once called “the Communion of Saints,” ordinary, sacred people in international settings, all sparks of the divine.

Just a sampling of these folks absorbed in doing what they love: chefs, a vineyard owner, a barber, salsa dancers and cliff dancers, surfers, farmers, a blind ice climber, the first woman champion of aeronautic acrobatics (that’s a plane doing wild, spinny gymnastics), a rancher on the Continental Divide, a weaver, a lady in Maine who fishes for lobsters and teaches children, a jazz musician in Waterproof, LA, film producers, a gospel choir, the co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, a hat-maker, firefighter, Olympic boxer, an Improv. Comedy class for women recently released from prison. Add in the diversity of children in many nations for sweetness and grace. One eloquent little girl explains how t.v. can’t top the “beautifuller things” she finds, exploring her island home.

Preacher Mosie Burks sparkles with vitality; Norman Lear, screenwriter and producer of over 100 sitcoms glows with quiet humor; author Jack Kornfield offers mystical insights; Pastor Michael Beckwith reminds us to be grateful for challenge, a “gift in work clothes.”  And what a wicked delight to see skimpy salsa costumes in the same film as the robes of a Benedictine monk!

Louie Schwartzberg, who made the film, explains that his parents were holocaust survivors, grateful for many things, especially for having children. He is adept at time-lapse photography of nature, so we see insects in intricate close-up, monarch butterflies taking flight, and flowers opening as gradually as the habit of gratitude develops. With so much beauty, the viewer can forgive a few cliches.

Tired of focusing on dysfunction and disorder?  (Sheesh—Pope Francis can’t even say hell is empty, as St. Catherine of Siena did in the fourteenth century, without provoking outrage.) Try “Gratitude Revealed.”  It’s will cost only 1 hour, 22 minutes of your time. It leads logically and with abundant examples to the theme that cultivating gratitude leads to increased trust in life. And couldn’t we all learn a little more trust? Or in spunkier terms:

“How I long to be in that number

When the saints go marching in…”