Dear Caminoheads,

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate this holiday! We do not celebrate Thanksgiving here, although a few years ago, when my Camino friend from Idaho was here visiting, we tried to do a Thanksgiving dinner for her… and my nephew who back then was 7, was in charge of explaining to her that we were not eating turkey but a chicken (just in case she thought the turkeys in this third world country were suffering malnutrition!)

I am feeling terrible today, the sneezing transformed into a dry cough, and now my head, neck, ears, throat, all are aching… but work was very quiet and I am already tucked in bed.

I am sharing below a few paragraphs from the transcript of a conversation between Br. David Steindl-Rast and Krista Tippet from the radio show “On Being”… I really like this idea of having different words to express our feelings… it seems to be always the case that when we have a name for things, things become real… let’s give these words a try…

“The reason why I use the words “gratitude” and “gratefulness” and “thanksgiving” in the way in which I use them is that we really need different terms for our experience. And we all know from experience that moments in which this gratitude wells up in our hearts are experienced, first, as if something were filling up within us, filling with joy, really, but not yet articulate. And then it comes to a point where the heart overflows, and we sing, and we thank somebody; and for that, I like a different term, and then I call that “thanksgiving.” And the two of them are two aspects, or two phases, actually, of the process that is gratitude, so that’s why I’m using it in this way.

And this idea of a vessel that is still inarticulate until it overflows, that is also very helpful in another way. It’s like the bowl of a fountain when it fills up, and it’s very quiet and still. And then when it overflows, it starts to make noise, and it sparkles, and it ripples down. And that is really when the joy comes to itself, so to say; when it is articulate.

And for us, for many people in our culture, the heart fills up with joy, with gratefulness, and just at the moment when it wants to overflow, and really, the joy comes to itself — at that moment, advertisement comes in and says, “No, no, there’s a better model, and there’s a newer model, and your neighbor has a bigger one.” And so instead of overflowing, we make the bowl bigger and bigger and bigger, and it never overflows. It never gives us this joy.

It’s affluent, this affluence inside that means it always flows in, it doesn’t overflow. It flows in and in and in and in and chokes us, eventually. And we don’t have to deprive ourselves of anything, but we can learn that the real joy comes with quality, not with quantity. And that’s an important distinction.”

There is no need for a bigger vessel loves,

Cris