Gratitude

Without gratitude, I do not think that the younger generation will stay with religion or any spiritual program for that matter.  My generation bought into guilt and fear of what God might do if we messed up.  That is old hat now.  I find that the generations behind me who have dropped out do not rally have much gratitude for what has been done for them in the spiritual world.  They are people of privilege with expectations that things ought to and will go their way.  It is not a matter of people being more selfish or self-centered.  That is part of the general pitfalls of the human condition.  I attend to my religous practice and prayer life, the more I feel grateful to God for what God has done for humankind.  God did not have to come into his world as a human being.  God did not have to have a Chosen People who God saved time and again from their own mess.  No one is owed sobriety who has a compulsion to drink.  Religious holydays are for gratitude first.  I have found it so.