The Power of Thanksgivingਨਮੂਨਾ

The Overflowing Fountain

There is something special about fountains. Whether they spray the water up or bring it up to a waterfall, they circulate the water and give off a peaceful sound. I looked into getting a cascading fountain where you fill the bottom with water and it pumps it to the top bowl, which overflows into the next bowl, which is poured into the next, and this repeats until it finally reaches the bottom, where it is pumped back up and started over. This cycle would feed back into itself. So if you put coloring in the water at the top or the bottom, it would soon cycle through it all.

People are like fountains. We fill our heart, and what overflows from the heart comes out the mouth, and pours back down into the heart, filling and overflowing back out the mouth. Complaining is the bitter overflow of negative focus. In contrast, thanksgiving is the overflow of a grateful heart. The fountain shows off at the top but pours back down, filling the base and restarting the cycle. When we choose what to look for and let it overflow, it also filters what is going back to the bottom pool. Our feelings ride this circuit. If we choose either the meditation of the heart or the overflow of the mouth, they will all move together. If we opt not to complain and choose to give thanks, that is what will fill our hearts.

Like a pair of binoculars. If you hold them properly, things that are small and far away seem large and close. If you hold them backwards, everything seems small and far off. There is no level of achievement or having that can produce gratefulness in a complainer's heart. Which also means that problems can’t stop a grateful heart.

Years ago, I talked with a man who was managing his elderly parents’ finances. When they lost money, they complained; then, when they made money, they complained because they would have to pay taxes. Their fountain was ready to complain no matter what. Complaining puts us in a state of permanent negativity. Giving thanks puts you into a permanent state of gratitude.

I want to share a perspective from a story of a Jew hidden from the Nazis, out of the Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews, “Rough conditions? Yes, an ungrateful person might see this place as too small for eight people, a diet that is limited and portions that are too meager, or only three dresses for two girls to share. But gratefulness is also a choice. I see an annex that hides eight people while others are being herded onto railway cars. I see food that is generously provided by Miep, whose family uses their ration cards for us. I see an extra dress for my sister and me, while there are surely others who have nothing. I choose to be grateful. I choose not to complain.” (Traveler’s Gift pg 102)

The words we choose to speak are seeds that we sow into our future. Complaining is sowing seeds of negativity, which creates worry and anxiety in our future. Today, let's choose what we overflow with and what cycle the fountain of our heart has.