What brings fulfillment is gratefulness, the simple response of our heart to this life in all its fullness.

Gratitude is here presented as more than a feeling, a virtue, or an experience; gratitude emerges as an attitude we can freely choose in order to create a better life for ourselves and for others. The Nigerian Hausa put it this way: Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.

Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted.

"The root of joy is gratefulness."

Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens.

Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence, and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song.

A single crocus blossom ought to be enough to convince our heart that springtime, no matter how predictable, is somehow a gift, gratuitous, gratis, a grace.