In counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life.

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives.

Remembering with thanks is what causes us to trust - to really believe.

Our fall is always first a failure to give thanks.

Any kind of love that lacks the iron of the Cross in it, is anemic love.

A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.

I think God calls us to small things, to faithfulness right where we are, to just do the next thing.