The Anatomy of Gratitude

I’m grateful for my toes and feet, my ankles and shins, my calves and quads, my knees and hips. And all the other parts and pieces, the nerves and commands that make it possible for me to move about, that enable me to stand, walk and run.

I’m grateful for my fingers and hands, my wrists and forearms, my elbows and shoulders, biceps and triceps. And all the other parts and pieces that make it possible for me to hold and be held, to hug and be hugged, to lug, and to write these very words by moving fingers over a keyboard or to hold and control a pen or pencil, a marker or a crayon, a stylus or the charred end of a stick.

I’m thankful for my heart and lungs and guts, my pits, pecs, package and butt. What a remarkable invention that I can function, that I can eat and breathe, that mouth and throat both lead to stomach and lungs for air, laughter, singing, water and food. What a sense of humor for our creator and/or the processes that created us to so closely align the sublime world of human bonding and sexual reproduction and pleasure with the mundane daily urgencies of pissing and pooping.

I'm grateful for the way all these parts and functions combine to sustain me and make possible the consumption of my daily bread, the drinking of water, the inhaling and exhaling of breath without which I would not be alive for more than a few minutes.

I'm glad to have my neck and jaw, my scalp and forehead, my hair and eyebrows, my whiskers and the unruly hair in my nose and ears, the sometimes thick and sometimes thin hair that covers most of my body from earlobes to toes. I'm grateful for those ears both external and internal which are to me the world’s most sensitive stereo microphones and my eyes which are to me the world’s most precise high definition 3D video cameras. 

I'm thankful for my nose and nasal cavities and sense of smell and taste, my mouth and tongue and teeth; my lips which have kissed loved ones and kittens and puppies; my mouth and face and the musculature and meaning that empower me to and to smile and speak, to laugh and yawn, to cry and curse. I'm grateful for the well-shielded, multi-core, dual-lobe microprocessor: my brain and the great mystery of the mind and memory and the learning and yearning it makes possible. I'm grateful for so many hundreds, if not thousands of functions, so creatively combined.

All this, of course, ain't just a blog entry. This is also a written prayer. I'm grateful to my Heavenly Parents for all the gifts I've been able to list above and for millions, if not billions of others, including the billions of cells that make up my body and yours, and the 7-billion souls now alive on the planet. Thanks also for my proximity to and love for the tiny slice of that huge, global family that includes my own family, friends, and strangers all about me. I'm thankful for these blessings which can be counted and the others that seem numberless and pray that you might continue to pour out these blessings upon this tiny planet as you have done well before and throughout my life. In Jesus name, amen.