Welcome to the 100-Day Gratitude Challenge

We invite you to begin the challenge with this enticing vision: You’re settling in with your morning coffee or tea, and you open up the daily news to the following headlines: “Every Country in the World Celebrates the End of Violence,“ “Global Leaders Gather to Listen and Learn,” “Earth Temps Stabilize after Worldwide Cooperation.” For just a moment, allow yourself to imagine what it would feel like in your mind, body, and heart to read these words. What burdens would fall away? What possibilities might come flooding in? How might your very breathing change?

If that vision seems like magical thinking, you’re right to the extent that such a world is grandly aspirational. But if we have a chance at inching our way toward it, we must first be able to envision it — to imagine an alternative to the division, violence, and greed that permeate so much of life. Living gratefully offers a path. Br. David Steindl-Rast shares this compelling invitation: “Imagine a society in which mutual trust has the leverage that our present social order accords to fear. Imagine a society in which mutual caring has the leverage that our present social order accords to egotism. If we reach the critical mass of grateful people, a surprising reorientation can take place.”

These 100 days aren’t about getting better at saying thanks for the good stuff, looking for silver linings, or trying to make something okay by telling ourselves it could be worse. They’re about the possibility of a more connected, joyful, and meaningful way we humans could be living. If we want a chance at rebuilding the fractured world, we have to visualize a connected one, and then live our lives in ways that contribute to individual wholeness and collective healing. Let’s begin.

As you’re beginning this 100-day journey, take time to envision the world you want to help create and sustain.