Unusually Grateful
Syncretic. Now there’s an unusual word to talk about gratitude, and certainly a word you don’t hear or use every day. How was your day at work today, honey? Oh, it was fine I suppose – pretty syncretic. Syncretic (def.) is an adjective, describing the situation when different forms of belief or practice are combined.
Teri and I formed a syncretic union when we got married. We came from different families and had to make room for some things there – like stuffing at Thanksgiving. In the bird or out of the bird? My family did it one way, hers the other. We host Thanksgiving now and we do both. Syncretic.
I will say this, if you want to have great clarity, momentum, and smooth execution in a great life, you don’t want syncretism as your guiding core value. You want complete assurances. 100% confidence.
Syncretic systems, unchecked and unguarded, are loose and malleable, marked by groups and people perpetually borrowing ideas from others, trying them on to see if they will integrate adequately and support sufficiently. Syncretism adopts things that might work at the expense of doing the hard work, with the sacrifices it takes along the way, to implement the principles that do work. Syncretic people and systems mortgage the future for the conveniences and comfort of the short term.
Syncretic changes should be made over Thanksgiving stuffing – not our lives.
Moral relativism is syncretism. You do you. You can have your truth, I’ll have mine. The problem is, of course, this gives way to survival of the fittest, the strongest surviving and the weaker becoming expendable. Sound dark and foreboding? Oh my, yes. Take away the option of syncretism in most any situation and there will be an uproar! Look back at history – reformers challenging the adverse impact of syncretism, disrupting the status quo, – they were executed. Jesus, Bonhoeffer, MLK, Luther…all reformers, disrupters, world-changers – all killed.
Over the last few weeks, I have been sharing about the foundational truth that we are unconditionally loved. This is not syncretic.
The question becomes syncretic when we view how we, as people, build our lives from the reality of being fully loved.
When we build, knowing that the foundation is secure and unshakable, we can build with great pillars of strength because they are supported. Conversely, if we don’t even know what’s beneath, we won’t build with the confidence we need. Thus – I’ve (perhaps) belabored the matter.
(Craig. Gratitude. Now!)
(OK! I’m getting there!) Syncretism is a big deal, even if it’s an uncommon word. This is how we get stuck in life. It’s how we get off the track we feel we are destined for. We’ve adopted things that don’t work, won’t work and we don’t know if there’s hope.
I am here to remind you, there is hope. You are loved – that’s home base. Start there. Find your way back there.
Today I want to encourage the pillar of Gratitude for a moment. Are you grateful – and for what or whom? You know the people and things for which your gratitude muscle flexes. It’s people for whom our grateful hearts beat. If you open your wallet or your bank statement and say “I’m so grateful for you, dollar bills” you’d sound foolish. If you open your door to your heart and tell someone how grateful you are for them, you’d sound like the saint you were created to be.
Because you are loved, you can show love rightly. Building on and into the pillar of gratitude is never going to fail you. So don’t be syncretic about it. Dollar Bills is the American Dream ideology. People are the Divine’s idea. (See why I belabored this…we live in the apex of syncretism today yet we want a great life. You can have one or the other…gotta choose though.)
Be grateful for people. Bless them generously with your life and your stuff.
Who are the people you are grateful for? Go tell them starting afresh today. No matter how good you are at this already – keep going, keep doing, keep becoming a pillar of gratitude in your home, your work, your neighborhood.
Indescribably loved people being grateful – it’ll change you and the whole atmosphere around you.
Grateful for you today! (Sorry it took me a while to get there…but we need a revolution!)
Peace~
Craig
