I’m standing in the kitchen this week when I whisper to the Farmer: 

“We need a password.” 

He raises his eyebrows, and I look for the answer to the question his eyes are asking:

“It’s just — when we’re caught up in some circling vortex of dark, I think we need a password to cue us to cut the mental Gordian knot. Some gentle password that’s our cue to mentally shift gears – to just cut through the dark.” 

“Your soul is a compass and you get to choose the direction you’re get to go.“

It’s right and good to hold space to fully grieve a season, so we can fully leave the dark of a season and enter into more good. But rumination doesn’t hold space for grief, but rather keeps circling the dark and swirling round and round, till the dark takes and locks your soul in a chokehold. You know you’re ruminating when you’re dwelling on the problems instead of in God.

Rumination relentlessly circles the drain of despair and isn’t your only life and your joy worth more than that and doesn’t your soul need to come up for air?  

And there at my wrist, I trace the only word inked anywhere into my skin: 

Eucharisteo.  The Greek word for giving thanks, when Jesus took the bread, and gave thanks, eucharisteo, at the Last Supper.

There’s a password that’s a passageway out of the dark.

Because sometimes it’s a Greek word that helps make sense of a knot of all the dark that reads as pretty much Greek to you. 

“I think that’s it: Eucharisteo. That’s the password we say out loud when we’re caught up in any cycle of ruminating, when we’re caught in a vortex of dark, when that dark could knot us all up.  Say the word – eurcharisteo – and that’s our cue. Our cue to name our thanks for all the graces here and now.” 

“We all need a cue to turn and choose gratitude. “

That’s the password: Eucharisteo – give thanks.  That one word that offers a three direly needed keys: 

Charis… Grace – see all as grace…

Eucharisteo… Thanksgiving – then give thanks for the all that is grace…

Chara… Joy! Then, grace upon grace: joy is always, always, somehow, really possible… 

There, that, in a word, is the password that unlocks the kingdom of God: Eucharisteo. 

“Eucharisteo:

There’s a password that’s a passageway out of the dark.“

We all need a cue to turn and choose gratitude. 

Slay ruminating with daily thanking.

It’s true: All those living wholeheartedly hold space in the four chambers of their one heart for  gratitude and for grief —  for lamenting life, and for loving life. 

But: If you ruminate on the dark, and only solely let the lamenting and grieving chambers of your heart pulse, you end up in heart failure. 

And if you invalidate the dark, and only blithely let the chambers of gratitude and loving be your life pulse, you end up with one erratic, weak heart beat. 

Eucharisteo is the password for fullest, realest life – because giving thanks gives the chokehold of the dark the ultimate slip.

And lets you breathe grace, and your heart beat fully free. 

I’m walking out of a church on the edge of a woods on the first warm Sunday this spring, when one of our sons messages me and I stop to read the words slowly on the screen, and I read them more than once: 

“To practice gratitude is to learn now, what you will do forever. ”

“I find it interesting, that in the face of real trauma, instead of holding on to bitterness, or refusing to forgive, you’ve chosen gratitude and trying to live open-handed. Choosing gratitude versus choosing anger or getting swallowed up by the dark …. leads to very different places.”

It’s always true: Your soul is a compass and you get to choose the direction you’re get to go. 

Our daughter studying for her first year university exams had mentioned it to me earlier just that same week, how she was studying in class what it means to live a life for a eulogy and not for a resume. 

And that’s what I think when I read our son’s message again – This is my eulogy: 

Out of a life of choices, she chose gratitude. 

She could have allowed discouragement, but she reached for courage, for a life fuller than that. 

And bitterness could have easily seeped in a thousand subtle ways, but she chose to steep in His oceanic love and ride all the waves with grace. 

Because she knew: The people who choose to give thanks, still give space for grief, but don’t give themselves over to any spiralling dark. 

That is what she daily decided: Lament your losses, but don’t lose your life to lament; lose yourself in the sure love of God. 

And she felt the utter relief of it: The people who choose to give thanks – are the people who choose to forgive.  

“The people who choose to give thanks – are the people who choose to forgive. When you’ve given thanks for grace upon grace —- how can you not pass on all that grace?  “

Because it’s true: When you’ve given thanks for grace upon grace —- how can you not pass on all that grace? 

It might be the wide easy way, to take offence, but why let that define you when you could take joy? 

And there’s always the option of pervasive hopelessness on one hand, or provoked harshness on the other, but there’s always the possibility to take God’s hand in everything and let all His grace enlarge your heart.  

This is always the question: Why not gratitude some more of the misery out of your one life? 

And if you can’t somehow find something to be grateful for — change just one thing, so somehow you can.

Go slower, linger longer. Still and breathe deeply. Look for the contours of beauty. Open wide your heart, your eyes, your hands, and receive. There’s good and grace and God, even here. 

“What you focus on, is what you’re formed into. Be consumed by the darkness, and the darkness can consume you.“

To practice gratitude is to learn now, what you will do forever. 

To practice gratitude is to practice the song we will sing for all eternity. What we choose to tune into every day, either tunes our hearts to sing His graces, or to murmur our disdain. Heaven and hell are not far off realities, but surrounds us here and now. 

What you focus on, is what you’re formed into. Be consumed by the darkness, and the darkness can consume you. 

Which is what Jesus meant when He said: “For all who take the sword, will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). For all who take up bitterness, will perish by the bitterness; for all who take up cynicism, will perish by the cynicism; for all who take up sharpness and harshness, will perish by sharpness and harshness. 

Or, to put it another way: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” (Nietzsche)

“You’ve been given only one life – live in ways you can give thanks for it.“

But God is a fountain of love, and His true disciples drink deep of His love, to be a fountain of love. The real people of God are a fountain of grace, a fountain of gratitude, a fountain of goodness of one great God. 

Gratefulness is what greatly expands your life to hold more joy. What do you really want to hold on to – bitterness or more joy? 

You’ve been given only one life – live in ways you can give thanks for it.

And out of a life of choices, she chose gratitude.

I’m sitting under a ring of lamplight last night, just before I turn the last light out, with the Psalms open there before me on that old table of ours made of barn beams, when the word of God reverberates off the walls of the four chambers of this ole heart, and this is what it feels like to be supported and upheld: 

“Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
    Make yourselves at home, talking praise.

For God is sheer beauty,
    all-generous in love,
    loyal always and ever.”

Psalm 100:4-5, MSG

Thanksgiving in the heart opens the door into the presence of God. 

And I smile grateful into all the darkening shadows:

The universe has a password and God chose the key to enter into His presence: Thank You. 

Thanksgiving in the heart opens the door into the presence of God. 

It’s thanks talk, not any trash talk, that will make you at home with the beauty of God, so you can dwell in joy. 

It’s all one’s own miraculous choice… 

And there’s one word, a password, worthy of one’s eulogy: Eucharisteo. 

And out of a life of choices, she chose gratitude.

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