The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Embracing Abundance: The Transformative Power of Gratitude
What if a simple shift in perspective could turn your life from scarcity to abundance? Join us as we uncover the incredible power of gratitude with insights from our guests, Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. Through spiritual texts, studies, and poetry, we explore how gratitude not only aligns us with promises of abundance but also enhances our mental and physical well-being. Our conversation is an invitation to embrace gratitude as a daily practice, nurturing deeper connections with ourselves, those around us, and the divine.
Gratitude connects us physically to the world and enriches our spiritual experiences, especially during significant times like Advent. We discuss how it bridges the gap between the food on our table and the people who make it possible. The concept of Dayenu from Jewish tradition reminds us to appreciate what we have, fostering a holistic outlook on life that acknowledges both joy and suffering. By adopting a thankful posture, we find renewal, recognizing the love behind every good thing, and choose to see the goodness around us despite challenges.
In a world fraught with adversity, finding gratitude can be transformative. We share a poignant story of a friend who honors gratitude through creating natural altars, proving that it transcends words, especially in moments of pain and trauma. The resilience of the human spirit shines through as we confront societal and environmental challenges, finding moments of appreciation amidst adversity. Supported by studies on its positive effects on longevity, gratitude is highlighted as an essential practice for embracing life’s complexities, offering hope and healing within a supportive community.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love.
Speaker 2:Hello Heather Drake. How are you today? Hello?
Speaker 1:Shelley Shepard I'm well, thank you. How are you, sheldon Shepard? I am well, thank you.
Speaker 2:How are you? I'm doing well. I am so grateful for this time with you today that we have to just share our hearts with others about this deep, abiding space of giving thanks, this practice that we both love so much in our lives and in our spiritual capacity. On Sunday, you shared in your message a quote, and I'm quoting this gratitude turns what we have into enough, and I think that that is this expansive place that we want to talk about today and what that means.
Speaker 1:I'm certainly not the first person to ever say that or to think like that, but I think that those particular words draw us to the remembrance or to the acknowledgement that very often the miracle that we are looking for, or the resurrection that we need, is a shift in our perspective. Sometimes the things, the very things that are in our hands, can miraculously turn into something else when we change perspective. And I think that is the path or that is the way that gratitude leads us into abundance. When, in whatever circumstance we are in, we find ourselves lacking, there has to be some kind of perception that is needed, because the promise of abundance comes from spirit that in this beautiful world that God created that there would be enough. And again we hear this echoed in the Second Testament.
Speaker 1:In my father's mansions are many. There's rooms. Jesus says this to us. You know he has the cattle on a thousand hills. There's gold and silver in all the things. If you have no money, come and eat, come and buy. The table is heaped up like a feast. There's all these images of abundance.
Speaker 1:And when we find ourselves thinking from a position of scarcity or lack, what we need is the miraculous change of perspective, and I think that, or I found that the practice of gratitude is that miracle. Is that? What do I have that I can change the way that I'm looking at? I also am reminded in the first testament, where there's an angel that shows up with a message to someone and says what's in your hand? I'm waiting for something else, but what is actually in your hand? I think gratitude shows us the goodness of what is actually in our hand. So that was a long way around to say yes, we love to talk about gratitude and the practice is thankfulness. Gratefulness In our calendar year, thanksgiving is here upon us, but it has to be for the real kind of life that you and I are talking about or endeavoring to live. Gratitude has to be a practice that expands us, that stretches us and that brings us into a reality that is more aligned with the kingdom that is promised to us now.
Speaker 2:Yes that's beautiful. I was lingering with a thought. The other day. I ran into this research. It was a longitudinal study that was done on. It was a longitudinal study that was done on I don't know how long ago it was, I didn't read all the details either.
Speaker 2:Practiced gratitude, practiced gratitude, journaling. Practiced, a way of enveloping, you know, a place of thanks. No, 31% had a. Out of these 180 nuns, 31% were more positive and had higher levels of energy, less inflammation. I mean, the study was just, it was very deep and wide 31% and the ones who did not practice had higher levels of inflammation, sadness, depression, oppression.
Speaker 2:And I came away from that thinking about this simple act of practicing gratitude, the simple act of writing a gratitude journal, or just at the end of the day, examining what it is that I'm grateful for, that happened. If I just have to pick one thing out and wow, I was grateful that when I went to the refrigerator there was milk and I didn't have to go to the grocery store. Whatever it is, this scientific, emotional, psychological space in our bodies is relieved when we give thanks, and I know we have this poem that how I Live and why that we're going to share here. I think this is a good place, these kinds of things that people are practicing that give them the resistance right and the assistance to hope sometimes is as simple as just writing it down and remembering what we're grateful for. But share with us what this poem, how I Live and why, by the Reverend Dr Ala Renee Bozarth that we have come upon as well.
Speaker 1:There's something really holy about poetry to me, and I think that part of it is a large part of our sacred text as followers of Jesus is poetry, and there's something very expansive about the language, something very inclusive about the language. But there's also something that's very I use the word soulish intentionally because sometimes I think we get very caught up in like our mind or our thoughts and if we forget to listen to our soul's longing or the voice of our soul, I think sometimes poetry can kind of remind us that there is a deeper listening that we're invited into. But how I live and why? Because I know that spirit matters itself lavishly into the universe. I am committed to packing a lot of living into a little life. Some call this ecstasy, I call it love. Love's favorite word is thanks.
Speaker 2:Isn't that beautiful.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's just, it makes you well, it makes me, anyway, feel like I want to revel in that. I want thanks to be the language or the vocabulary of all the love that I feel for the world, for myself, for God, for the beloveds that are all around us. But thanks, that thank you. When I hear that love's favorite word is thanks, I'm reminded of how much dignity saying thanks for something can give to something. To say thank you to you know, to the universe, to God who puts food on our table, but being aware and saying thank you to the farmers who have farmed it. There's a place in our lives that we can give dignity to all kinds of things by just recognizing that there is a thank you that can be offered. Our family the other day had come in and our dog, large dog, came right with us and someone in the family I don't remember one of the children said Luna, thank you that you come with us. When we come, we don't have to call you.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking about just what saying thank you does.
Speaker 1:First of all, it unifies us, but then it also reminds us of good that is all around us and I, absolutely I, want to pack as much living into one life as we can.
Speaker 1:I want to savor every bit of it. I want to drink the wine, I want to love the love, I want to see people, I want to be in places, I want to smell beautiful things, I want to hear the poetry, I want to sing the songs, I want to go to the museums, I want all of the goodness, and I think Thanksgiving is how we get there that we would pay attention to that. One of the things that I am confident in is that it connects us to our source, and our source is God, and to say thank you reminds us that love is our source, that we are being cared for, that hope is coming for us, that there is good in store for us, and so I'm so inspired by that, by the practice, and I think that we stir each other up, that we remind each other. When we say thank you for something, it reminds someone else that they can say thank you for something.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and I love the beginning of this piece because I know that spirit matters itself lavishly into the universe. Not just a little bit, you know. Yes, not just one time. Yes, right, but there's this on, and it reminds us of the abundance, yes, the ongoingness of this understanding, and so I've been holding these thoughts this, uh, this week, as we prepare for the thanksgiving holiday, in one hand. In the other hand, uh, I want us to talk just for a few minutes about what it is feeling like, what you're hearing as a pastor or as a friend, or from a hearts where, you know, I just don't have anything to give thanks for right now. I just feel despondent, I feel depressed, I feel oppressed, I feel like nothing that I do makes a difference. Let's talk about that intersection of our lives, where we are, what we're hearing other people say right now and what we might offer as a word, maybe in one of these pieces or just from our own hearts. How gratitude, gratefulness, giving thanks. These practices are consistent things in our lives, but they're not always easy.
Speaker 1:I think part of the reason why it's not always easy is because I think our ego is opposed to thanksgiving, thankfulness, gratefulness. Somehow I think that our ego has told us that we have earned the good in our life, like that what we have is because we have made the right choices, or this is because I worked hard, or because I I choose this as opposed to remembering that love is the source of it all, that there is abundance there, and thanksgiving or giving thanks or mindful practices or gratefulness really kind of realigns us, I think, with our true selves, with the self that knows that we have never been separated from the goodness of God, from the love of Christ, from the light that is each other. And I think that when we remind ourselves there's good around me, or when we dignify something or someone or some creature or some soul with thankfulness, that again it puts us in a community. It takes us outside of that singleness and says you are part of something and I love that about Thanksgiving for us. It reminds us that we are not all alone. In fact, it really stands in the face of the lie that we've done this by ourselves, that there is a good, beautiful world that has offered herself on our behalf and that in the finding of ways to be thankful in the practices.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I love about friendship is that we often find how we can inspire each other to what thankfulness is, who is worthy of thankfulness or where we give thankfulness. And again, I just think that when we even practice thankfulness in any community that we're in, it allows like a very gentle, calming presence to it. You know, like even if we're in just recently, in our landscape, there've been a lot of heated conversations and people are very passionate about something, and I have been intentionally trying to find places to connect with people and I found it harder and harder to find that connection sometimes, and so what I've been able to say is I'm so thankful for your passion, I'm so thankful for you being able to articulate what is so important to you. I can't agree necessarily with you on why you're passionate, but that I can say thank you for sharing your passion with us.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful practice, a beautiful way to think about. You know, sometimes, when we have to stretch ourselves to find gratitude or to witness it or to observe it.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful way to practice it. I think for myself what you just spoke about, the ego, and I wonder if, to tag onto that, if there's some kind of privilege that we feel or that we're owed, or that we deserve this sort of life that we have, and so we're not as grateful, we're not as aware of where the food came from, the immigrants that actually are in places to procure and procure the food to us, to pack it, to ship it, to deliver it, yes, to bring it to our tables, right, um, like, we like, there's this big space between our refrigerator door and the entrance into the grocery store. You know, that's all we see, that's all we experience, right, like there's so much behind the grocery store that we're not grateful for, and so we're preparing these huge places of spread next week and meals and inviting people to eat that meal, and sometimes Heather. I even wonder if we have not observed Thanksgiving, in light of our brothers and sisters who had to give up something for us to experience Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:Well, and can I also say to you that it's sometimes our brothers and sisters didn't give it up. Sometimes it was forcibly taken that's what I'm saying From them. And so, yeah, right, so to be able to say that perhaps the native Indians that were on this land first did not give this up, it was taken from them Absolutely, and even before the people group that was here before them, and so it's not so much maybe an offering, as it was a tax or it was something was stolen. But I think that it is where we can center ourself now is to be able to say, for this that I have, I see the sacrifice, or I see the goodness that was gifted to the farmer who planted a seed, see the goodness that was gifted to the farmer who planted a seed, to the person who harvested that seed, to the earth, who allowed the seed to germinate and grow and produce a healthy vegetable or fruit that I am experiencing now, that will nourish my body, yes, yes, yes. I think that gratitude positions us in a place of humility, not in a place of scarcity or in a place where we diminish ourselves, but to recognize that every good and beautiful thing is offered to us from a loving father and this eternal parent who said I will put you in this world and here is where you'll work to thrive and work to call things. I think it was Cummings who said gratitude amplifies goodness. It rescues us from negative emotions and connects us in meaningful ways. We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom.
Speaker 1:One of the things that Giving Thanks does is really connect us, and I think it does exactly what you said where it connects us to maybe takes away the gaps between a refrigerator and the farmer who, or the immigrant who has picked it, or the people who have, you know, worked hard so that we can eat. But it's not just about the physical things that we've eaten, you know, I think about what gratitude does. When I even consider that Advent is coming and I listen to the story of Advent and what it offers to us, and then thanksgiving, or thankfulness that arises from hearing the story and going all of the women who gave themselves in beautiful and powerful ways so that I can have the light or the illumination that I do now, that I can have the light or the illumination that I do now. I mean there is ways to live our life constantly in the practice of gratitude, which would be constantly in the practice and in connection with divine love. I think that's such a whole and a holistic way of trying to find our life. It in no way means that we don't acknowledge pain, that we don't acknowledge suffering, but that we acknowledge a greater story, a greater magic, a re-enchantment, something that is bigger, that there is a promise that love is eternal and that good things matter. And I think that finding the beauty, I think that gratitude allows us to find beauty in things and the practice of that finding beauty, entrenching ourselves in beauty and being aware of beauty, being grateful for beauty.
Speaker 1:We were at an art museum recently and I was so grateful for all of the artists that had contributed. I was thinking about just the scope of so many different people who had given their artwork so that we could stand in front of it and be inspired by it, be in awe of it. But I know that art is something that is a gift from someone's soul and so not to be taken lightly. And so there's so much hope in being able to say thank you to each other in our most generous practices and being a part of family. But to say thank you to the world, to God, to the ocean that continues her tides and her gifts every day, to the birds that fly overhead, to the sun that rises every morning and to the moon, to the beautiful, beautiful moon who offers so much. And I, just I agree that this practice can, it can be a method of healing for us, it can be renewal, it can be a higher perspective and it can be transcendent.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, you just said like a whole week's worth of thought in about three minutes.
Speaker 1:I get like a little wound up about this.
Speaker 2:It's just like wow, wow. I want to take us back to the quote at the beginning gratitude turns what we have into enough. And it reminds me of this Hebrew word, which is a song that is usually part of the Jewish Passover, but the word is the word is Dayenu, and it actually means it would have been enough, and this is sung repeatedly. It has 15 stanzas in the entire song, but it's broken down into these categories the first five are leaving slavery, the next five are miracles and the next five are being with God, and each one is sung in unison. And then they say Dayenu between each stanza, which means it would have been enough. So I'm just going to read a few of these. I'm not going to read all 15. Because I think it makes the point that sometimes we have to remember what we're grateful for, right, we have to remember where we were compared to where we are now, and I think this particular piece does a great job of that. And so the first stanza if he had brought us out of Egypt, dayenu. If he had executed justice upon their gods. Dayenu. If he had split the sea for us. Dayenu. If he had drowned our oppressors. Dayenu. If he had fed us manna, dayenu. If he had given us Shabbat, dayenu. If he had led us to Mount Sinai, dayenu If he had brought us into the land of Israel, dayenu. If he built the temple for us, dayenu, it would have been enough. Like any of these things would have been enough. Like any of these things would have been enough.
Speaker 2:So this song is a reminder at Passover to remember what we're grateful for. This practice of understanding, of gratitude and gratefulness and giving thanks is also a remembering posture and sometimes remembering is its own practice because we forget. We forget that you know, historically, the Native Americans were here first. But unless you're going to that museum on a regular basis, we forget, right. And so we get here and we have forgotten. And so we get here and we have forgotten, daino. We have forgotten what you shared on Sunday. That gratitude is simply looking at what we have and calling it enough like no more is needed. If we never were blessed with anything beyond where we are right now, heather, daino, it would have been enough. It's just powerful, this powerful place of understanding of what that does to our bodies, our minds, our spirits, our souls, our day-to-day conversations with individuals who sometimes, when we run into them have very little to be grateful for. Let us remember.
Speaker 1:Yes, it would have been enough. It is enough. That is a beautiful posture for us to agree with the words that remind us that every good thing will be given to us because our eternal parent loves us and has good for us. You don't have to seek the good for yourself. You know I, the Lord, have already planned.
Speaker 1:It is one of the things that the prophet said for us that there is good in the world, and it is our choice to see the good. There is an Old Testament verse that says that it's the glory of God to hide a thing, and it is the glory of man to uncover it.
Speaker 1:And this beautiful thing of going. What does it look like for us to uncover all of the beauty, all of the treasures, all of the goodness that God has built into the world? What is it like for us to stand and witness the tree? What does it look like for us to stand and witness our brother and sister and to see the goodness of God in them, or to see the work of Christ in them? Maybe goodness has been a little veiled in their life, but where is the hope of saying that this other person that I stand in front of also bears the image of Christ?
Speaker 1:And this hope that this practice of giving thanks, of recognizing the good, of calling it out, of recognizing the good of calling it out, it offers to us a way out of pridefulness, out of that judging things as not being enough or not having enough even to be able to be thankful for difficult places Not, you know, I'm grateful for the trauma, but to be able to say you know, I'm grateful for the healing that will come. I'm grateful for the hope, that is, that I have an awareness that that is not okay or that is not expected. There's so many places for us that allow us to integrate our whole life with the practice of thanksgiving, to allow the good and the bad, to allow the light and the dark, to allow the grace. That says that. Where do I find the presence of love in the middle of everything, and how do I honor that love? I think one of the paths is gratitude.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, you and I believe that very strongly and we practice that, and we may even know people who do not practice it at all, who find it difficult to be grateful.
Speaker 1:Well, can we talk about that for a minute, because I have a friend who has had significant trauma, as many people have, from the church and understands the practice of gratitude, but really the words are thick in her mouth, she can't get them out.
Speaker 2:right now, she's just in pain.
Speaker 1:Right, a lot of pain, and I see that pain and honor it and I'm hopeful that pain is not all that she will know. But right now she cannot say thank you because it just doesn't feel sincere. But she leaves a little. Every time she's outside she makes a little altar. I watch her. She's gathered a few stones together, a few leaves, a few branches, and she makes something lovely, little tiny things. It almost looks sometimes like a little fairy house or a little altar table or it's arranged in such a way. And when I watch her do that what my heart says is that is the thank you that she is able to express right now. When words fail us, thank you is bigger than just our words. It can be what we write, what we paint, how we live, what we do. And while our words are not excluded from being thankful, there may be a time in a person's life where that is not something that you say, but it can be a life that you live of gratitude.
Speaker 1:It can be a holy ritual that you engage in that allows the world to receive your gratitude, to pay attention to the small and beautiful and significant things that are around us, just in nature, that testify to us of a loving spirit that is still hovering over the chaos that is still creating and invites us to co-create with the spirit and bring the kingdom, the kingdom of love, the kingdom that Jesus offered us, into the now.
Speaker 2:Yes, I appreciate that story and that insight about your friend. I think it's important, particularly maybe in our time right now, where there are so many mixed emotions and feelings about chaos in the world. I'll just put it that way. I feel like it's okay, like I want to say to people it's okay If this Thanksgiving doesn't feel grateful or if you're in a space where you can't seem, like you just said, to form the words in your own mouth or to find something in nature that that inspires your heart or your spirit, it's okay. You know, I think part of our capacity as people that practice this art and gift of thanksgiving or giving thanks, is to hold that bucket of sorrow and pain at times for people that cannot utter the words right, and that is our gift to the world in many ways. And so you know, just to be, I think, completely honest with myself, I know there's people that are not in a space to give thanks this week or next week or maybe even next month, but here we are, practicing it, teaching it, offering it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and one of the things that I would like to remind people that are listening is that's the beauty of community, because sometimes, when I cannot utter the words, someone else in my community came that's right.
Speaker 1:They're at a different place in the journey, and it does help us to bring into remembrance things that we should be thankful for, the more that we're in a more diverse community together. It expands our ability to see things to be grateful for or as oppressive or as flawed, that even in the recognizing of a system that has failed us, of a person that we can no longer trust, that there is a beauty that can be held, even by someone else, to recognize that for us and in our community, in our practice of connection, our community, in our practice of connection, in the hope that comes to us, in listening to our soul, that I believe is full of gratitude for the life that we get to lead, for the opportunities that we're afforded.
Speaker 1:And I don't as much as I love the idea of a Pollyanna I mean what a good story if you haven't looked it up. I mean, definitely look up that story, how it changes someone's life, to change your thoughts about something. But gratitude has a unique power behind it. I believe, again, we see this in the practices of Jesus, who is grateful, but in all the leaders who are wisdom leaders, gratitude has a supreme importance in our being able to see things as they really are.
Speaker 2:One of the things in the longitudinal study of these 180 nuns is that those who practiced some form of gratitude writing it, speaking it, sharing it lived 15 years longer than those who did not. And just that alone, right like wow, yes here's a path to longevity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, incredible.
Speaker 2:And this beautiful incredible and what it exudes right in that individual. You know how it shows up on their face, or you know in how they prepare a meal or in how they, you know, take care of their neighbor. Whatever that gratitude, that practice of gratitude expands us. It spills from us into multiple ways and spaces that we may not even know that it's going. But it's just a beautiful, it's a beautiful practice and I hope that we, as you know, women of faith and of spirit, continue to share that and expand it with others. I know that there's another piece that we want to, that we want to read together and share. I wonder if we, if we, could take turns reading this by WS Mullen. Maybe we could each take a paragraph. Maybe you start and then I'll follow.
Speaker 1:Listen. With the night falling, we are saying thank you. We are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings. We are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you.
Speaker 2:We are standing by the water, looking out in different directions directions, back from a series of hospitals, back from a mugging after funerals. We are saying thank you. After the news of the dead, whether or not we knew them, we are saying thank you In a culture up to its chin in shame, living in the stench it has chosen, we are saying thank you.
Speaker 1:Over telephones. We are saying thank you In doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators, remembering wars and the police at the back door and the beatings on stairs. We are saying thank you In the banks that use us. We are saying thank you With the crooks in office, with the rich and the fashionable.
Speaker 2:Unchanged, we are going on saying thank you thank you With the animals dying around us, our lost feelings. We are saying thank you with the animals dying around us, our lost feelings. We are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives. We are saying thank you with the words going out like cells of a brain, with the cities growing over us like the earth. We are saying thank you faster and faster, with nobody listening. We are saying thank you With nobody listening. We are saying thank you. We are saying thank you. We are saying thank you and waving dark though it is WS Merwin. Thank you, heather Drake, for this time. Thank you, shelley Shepard. May gratefulness be among us as we give thanks.