satisfactions from blighted spots...

The older I get, the more I am aware of the deep importance of gratitude. Mind you, this doesn't mean that I practice gratitude more-in fact it often seems a more and more difficult thing. And yet, and yet... These days before Thanksgiving, to deepen my own sense of gratitude, I will excerpt Boston Unitarian Thanksgiving sermons beginning with Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham's THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD'S GOODNESS.

"O THAT MEN WOULD PRAISE THE LORD FOR HIS GOODNESS, AND FOR HIS WONDERFUL WORKS TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN
Psalm cvii. 8, 15, 21, 31

...we do not " praise the Lord for his goodness " as we ought, because we are heedless; not remembering him in his benefits, because we remember him in nothing. The neglect is only a part of a general deficiency in our religious sentiments. We are too anxious, or too much occupied. We are so taken up with the good gifts of life, as mere means of enjoyment, that we have little disposition to mingle them with devout acknowledgments to Him who bestows them all. Or else, unhappy in the midst of them and indifferent to the best of them, vexed at their discounts or afraid for their loss, we feel the disturbances of our own thoughts shaking all the foundations of comfort, and we allow a single affliction to cloud a whole heaven of grace, and we deny that there is any thing worthy of very fervent expressions of thanks in the favors of so distracted a lot...

And again, " his wonderful works to the children of men" are not rehearsed as they should be, because we do not recognize them where they are most really displayed. We mistake their nature; and so when they are present we do not observe them; and when nothing is present but the feeding of a full sense, or the triumph of a proud will, or the preponderance of brute power, we inaugurate our selfishness; we make priestesses of our passions; we confound our greediness or ambition or revenge with a true thank-offering to Heaven... We still imagine often that we are giving thanks, when we are only blessing ourselves for success or indulgence. Our rejoicing is not in the Eternal Providence. Our returns are not to Him. We set our regards in the wrong direction. We put our passing interests, and the gratification of our immediate wish, in the place of the most that God can do for us. We exalt our conceit and presumption, and call it gratitude...

The reason that we have no more gratitude is that we have no more fidelity; —that we are no more true to our powers of discernment, means of improvement, and sources of joy; to the capacities of every upright heart, and the privileges of the meanest condition...

No faithful heart will hang dependent on contingencies. It can see outward prosperities wither with a better trust than others see them spring. It can glean up more satisfactions from blighted spots, than others can cut from whole " fields of offerings." The blessing must abide within; and if it is there, it is everlasting."

Blessings