International Day of World Peace was celebrated recently so now might be a good time to reflect on how our own gratitude can make a difference.
Gratitude brings light to the soul because it shines a light on our sense of interconnectedness with one another. It immediately awakens us to what we receive from each other. This extends beyond our immediate connections with people we know personally to include a wide array of people who contribute to our world.
Such a sense of interconnectedness brightens the ‘light in our soul’ because it moves us out of our individualism and separateness and towards a recognition of our absolute dependence on others. This may make us feel less indifferent to the senseless hurt inflicted on others.
When we acknowledge what we receive from another it has a motivating force that urges us to give back. One of the most powerful ways to give back is to acknowledge to others what we have received from them. This brings about what the social anthropologist Margaret Visser describes as “reconnaissance” – recognition of the others’ value in their very humanness through expressing gratitude to them.
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