1000 Gifts Discussion

1. How are you doing on your list of 1,000 Gifts? Would you share three with us?

I'm trying to write 50 a week (about 10 every work day). So...hopefully I'll have 1000 in 20 weeks.
Colors
Hot showers
Students

2. What response did you have to Voskamp's theory that the restlessness of time slows when you sink into the moment-by-moment?

I usually read JJ's questions before reading the corresponding chapter, and as soon as I read this question I realized I something:  through this week of writing down gifts, my whole being has been so...calm.  Or at least calm by Rebecka standards.  The past few months my mind has been going, going, going.  Pretty much every waking moment has been spent researching grad schools, blogging about my teaching (so that once I do apply, I can impress schools), and figuring out what other things I can do to score both acceptance and a pleasing assistantship/fellowship.  I've been obsessed.  And it's not been healthy.  Until this week.  And I didn't even realize until now.  I'm so much more calm.  And the only thing I can think of to attribute this new calmness to is my searching for thankfulness.

So my response to Voskamp's theory--after my very limited practice--is that I think it just might work.

3. Please share at least one quote from the book that stopped you in your tracks this week. Why did it?

"Giving thanks for one thousand things is ultimately an invitation to slow time down with weight of full attention.  In this space of time and sphere, I am attentive, aware, accepting the whole of the moment, weighing it down with me all here" (p. 69).  "When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God.  In His embrace, time loses all sens of speed and stress and space and stands so still and...holy" (p. 70).

I enjoyed this whole chapter because I think Voskamp really pointed out what can happen practically when we give thanks:  we become present, we love the moment (as opposed to always looking ahead), and time slows.  And all that sounds really, really good to me.

4. Voskamp writes she just wants time to do her own life well. Can you name at least three items that would assure you you are living your own life well? Have you achieved those things? What still needs to be done for that peace to invade your space?

I'm not sure I fully understand this question. I'll leave this question blank for now and see if others' responses help me understand.

5. Voskamp writes "I only live a full life when I live fully in the moment." (pg. 68) This is a lovely thought, but what if the moment you're living in is ugly and you don't want to sink into it, embrace it? Is it still worth investing in that present moment if it's hurtful, ugly, or tricky? Why or why not? What's the benefit of living fully in the moment?

I think it's still worth embracing, because I think that's how we learn from it.  However...I don't think I could do it.  At least not yet.  If a tragedy were to hit my life today, I don't think I would be able to sink into it.  But, maybe this is another benefit of practicing a life full of thanksgiving?  If we practice it in the little things, in the day-to-day, maybe eventually we'll be able to practice it in the big stuff, too.

1: kids laughing from deep inside.
taste buds that are never satisfied ( how I want that to be me for God)
hugs of love

2: when I live in now, things are fun! for I see things as they are not how I want them to be.

Well, hello there! Glad to see you!

If you'd like to watch the "official" interview for Chapter 4, here's the link: http://www.incourage.me/2011/02/one-thousand-gifts-chapter-four.html

1. How are you doing on your list of 1,000 Gifts? Would you share three with us?

2. What response did you have to Voskamp's theory that the restlessness of time slows when you sink into the moment-by-moment?

3. Please share at least one quote from the book that stopped you in your tracks this week. Why did it?

4. Voskamp writes she just wants time to do her own life well. Can you name at least three items that would assure you you are living your own life well? Have you achieved those things? What still needs to be done for that peace to invade your space?

5. Voskamp writes "I only live a full life when I live fully in the moment." (pg. 68) This is a lovely thought, but what if the moment you're living in is ugly and you don't want to sink into it, embrace it? Is it still worth investing in that present moment if it's hurtful, ugly, or tricky? Why or why not? What's the benefit of living fully in the moment?

1. This is the week we challenge ourselves to write a list of 1,000 gifts we recognize in eucharisteo, thanksgiving. Start your list... and share five bits of thankfulness with us all. (Don't feel like you have to finish the list to 1,000 right now. Set a goal for yourself to keep working on it, but don't gorge yourself on thankfulness!)

A husband who loves me more than he loves himself
A soft, purring kitty keeping my lap warm
Coffee
My dad's care
My mom's love

2. Did any quotes jump out at you from this chapter? Please share at least one and tell us why it struck you as significant.

There was so much in this chapter that really spoke to me.  One of my favorite quotes was: "Do not disdain the small.  The whole of the life--even the hard--is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole.  These are new language lessons, and I live them out.  There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things.  It is this:  to give thanks in this one small thing.  The moments will add up" (p. 57, emphasis added).  It's so true--life is made up of the small.  And if we forget the small, then life might just pass us by.  Furthermore, if we want to develop a life of thanksgiving, it has to start with the everyday.  And it takes practice, just as Voskamp said.

3. Voskamp refers to this eucharisteo as a new language. How long would you realistically guess it would take you to learn a new language (like Swahili? or Chinese? or Spanish?)? Do you feel the learning of the language of thankfulness should take less time than the learning of a recognized foreign language? How does viewing thanksgiving as a new language change your expectations of your performance as a woman of thanks?

I think learning a language depends on a few things.  First, it depends on how much time you're going to dedicate to learning that language.  Are you going to move somewhere and submerse yourself in the language?  Or are you going to pop in Rosetta Stone once every other week?  Second, how fast you learn a language is dependent on your knowledge of other languages.  Typically, the more languages you know, the easier it is to pick up a new one.

So, applying this to a life of thanksgiving...

I think the more we submerse ourselves in a life of thanksgiving, the easier it will be to learn how to live out this life.  What does that look like though?  For sure it means intentionality.  I think starting the list Voskamp/JJ challenged us to do is a fantastic start.  I also think surrounding ourselves with others who want to grow in this area is another good way to learn the language of thanksgiving (i.e., this discussion group was a great idea, JJ .

As for the idea of the more languages you speak, the easier it is to pick up another--I think that thanksgiving will be easier to cultivate for those who have intentionally cultivated other characteristics.

4. In naming your gifts, do you agree with Voskamp that "in naming that which is right before me, that which I'd otherwise miss, the invisible becomes visible"? (pg. 54) Why or why not? Can you give specific examples?


I do agree with Voskamp.  I started to tear up just writing the first few items of my thanksgiving list.  I think seeing it on paper (or on screen, as I'm doing) does, in a way, make the invisible visible.


5. How would finding joy and happiness in "all the little things" change the relationships in your life? (Your marriage? Your parenting?) How would your perspective change when/if the significant person in your life told you YOUR thankfulness made THEM happy?

I stand by what I said last week--I'm the happiest in my marriage, my job, etc. when I'm most thankful for them.  And I think receiving positive reinforcement that this thankfulness was benefiting others would be awesome.  However, that kind of reinforcement typically only comes from mutual relationships.  And, let's face it, many relationships are not mutual (I'm specifically thinking of my students here).  What I'm saying is, I think we should continue this life of thanksgiving whether others acknowledge it or not.

1/ Did any thought/theme startle you this week? Please give at least one quote that resonated with you personally:
"For years of mornings, I have woken wanting to die. Life itself twists into nightmare. For year I have pulled the covers up over my head, dreading to begin another day I'd be bound to just wreck. Years, I lie listening to the taunt of names ringing off my interior walls, ones from the past that never drifted far and away: Loser. Mess. Failure. They are signs nailed overhead, nailed through me, naming me... I wake to self-hatred. To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always, the failing." (pg. 17) "Physically feeling it in the veins trembling, the hard pant of the lungs, the seeing it in the steady stars, how much I really want to really live. How I don't want to die." (pg. 18)
Those words knocked the wind out of me.  It felt at though she pulled them out of my own head.  THIS is how I have spent my life. Terrified to live. Feeling as though everyday I was a walking zombie. In many times, not wanting to wake up and face another day. But being terrified that suddenly time would be up and life would be over. Then my veins would run ice cold, my heart pounds and I find myself terrified of the thought of being out of time and screaming to the Lord in my head "But I want to live! Please give me more time!"  I spend so much of my life in a constant state of self-hatred and anxiety. What does it mean to really live?  I see people that I love and admire living life "to the fullest" and I find myself envious. Is there something wrong with me?  Does it mean that I am not as "saved" as I should be?  Or is it something that is simply out of my grasp?  I KNOW God wants more for me.  But I feel like I'm stuck in the mud. I make progress every now and then but it is slow and sometimes ineffective. The strange thing is that inside, I know this isn't a failure. It is a teaching moment and a chance to really "get it". But even though I know in truth that what I see as failure God sees as a chance to grow, I focus only on the failure and the cycle continues.

2. What's on your "bucket list"? Has this changed over the years?(i.e., before college/after college, before marriage/after marriage, before kids/after kids.) How? Why do you think our culture is fascinated with the idea of "Things to Do Before You Die"? It sounds incredibly silly but I never wanted to put together a bucket list when I was younger.  Death terrified me and any thought of having some sort of list that would somehow spell out when I had "done everything" and was therefore ready to die freaked me out.  I do have a list of things I want to do though I don't consider it a bucket list, per se.  To me it is more of a fantasy list... things that I would love to do but realize I am not likely to ever be able to do them. For example, I want to summit Mt. Everest. Never gonna happen. I hate the cold, am afraid of heights, terrified of climbing and lack the physical discipline to get anywhere near that mountain. But I can dream.  My list is filled with things that I will probably never do but I'm okay with that. 
In some ways I don't think that the "bucket list" preoccupation has anything to do with actual death itself.  I think it has more to do with avoiding the feeling of death while you are alive.  There is a certain degree of hopelessness that rides on the backs of every anthem that we hear associated with living life here and now.  I've seen death first hand and it scares me much less than the feeling of "death" that I, like so many others have lived with before. Some live with it every day.  I think having a bucket list makes us feel that we have something to live for when we feel as though we are not really living at all. 

3. When you consider your everyday, do you believe you can find things to make you "bow low," "see beauty," and be "arrested by wonder"? Why or why not? It doesn't take much to distract me when it comes to the beauty around me.  Even when I was little, I used to stare out the window for hours looking at the trees, birds, sky, rocks and anything else in view and was constantly amazed at all God had blessed the world with. I am not a morning person but love being able to watch the sun come up while I drive to clinicals. To see the purple mist that settles in the valleys and the fifty different shades of green in the fields and trees.  The oranges and pinks of the sunrise and the sound of song birds... I get the chills just thinking about it. Even in the classroom, I am completely mesmerized by the human body and how it all works together.  From the smallest particle in our being to the the workings of our minds, nothing is wasted and everything has a place and purpose and works together with everything else in this incredibly complex and beautiful dance.  I don't understand who people can study science and see all of this and not believe in a God that created it all!  However, I am still struggling with how to surrender and accept the things I am thankful for as gifts.  In many ways I guess I have viewed these amazing creations as something that God has gifted to others and I am only allowed to observe. I have no idea why I am this way... I have no doubt that God has blessed me beyond measure. My entire life is marked by incredible moments of grace and love, even from before I was born.  For some reason I feel as though I don't deserve it or that it was not specifically meant for me.  I feel as though my eyes have always been open to the blessing around me but I have not been open in order to truly RECEIVE them.

4. Voskamp spends several pages providing support that Charis/Grace, Eucharisto/Thanksgiving, and Chara/Joy exist whenever, wherever. Did she convince you? How does that affect your daily experience?/b]

I am a complete believe in this.  Everything that I see in nature and the more I learn the more I am convinced. I think the hard part is trying to remind ourselves to look up from whatever we are currently doing or whatever situation we are in before we can see it. 

5. What do you think of the concept that salvation may be acquired at the acceptance of Christ but "fullest" salvation is only available in thanksgiving?
That makes perfect sense to me.  For me, it all goes back to having open eyes to everything but not being open to receive any of it.  I know I have accepted Christ and have salvation but I've never been able to fully enjoy it.  I think this is because I have not openly received and accepted the joy He wants to give me through thanksgiving.  I guess I could sum it up like this - I am incredibly grateful for everything I have been blessed with. But grateful and thankful are not necessarily the same thing.  You cannot thank someone for a gift that you have not accepted. God keeps giving me so much but I can't feel "full" unless I learn to accept it. I need to accept those blessings in order to grab the life He gives by the tail and really live.

Now I just need to put that into practice.