From Appreciation to Morality: The Power of Practice

I recently joined a lecture at Yale Divinity School given by the poet and conflict mediator Pádraig Ó Tuama. The poet is a compelling theologian. While he said many things that directly and indirectly speak to the beauty and importance of living gratefully, one remark has stayed with me because it reflects the culmination of Br. David Steindl-Rast’s teachings. With an uncompromising tone, Ó Tuama said to the room of aspiring scholars, theologians, preachers, and changemakers that “Spirituality without morality is self-gratification.” 

Self-gratification is a risk we face when living gratefully. Even with a commitment to appreciating life, we can easily lose our way if we allow all that we appreciate to hide us from seeing the suffering of others. As a spiritual practice, living gratefully helps us develop greater awareness of life’s beauty, its gifts and opportunities, and our relationships with ourselves and others. 

Awareness alone, though, cannot be the end goal of a spiritual practice. The goal of living gratefully is transformation — a changed heart, an expanded perspective, and a deepening relationship with the world. When we live gratefully, we become more fully alive to others. First, we wake up and see a hurting world that requires tenderness. Then our morals compel us to act.

Morality is a word that some may find abrasive. Individuals and institutions have certainly used so-called morals to oppress others. We can see this happening today. But morality should be a liberating force, not an oppressive one, that guides us toward each other, not away from each other. Morals — values and virtues — make us better humans and a better species. When we embody our values, we change our behaviors and our relationship to one another. 

Moving beyond self-gratification depends on values that are rooted in love. Practiced daily, values shape who we become and how we arrive at every situation. If we do not have a strong moral conviction for changing the systems that impoverish and discriminate, if we do not have a strong moral framing for understanding our responsibilities to each other and the Earth, if we are not grounded in values that demand our care of hungry children, we risk being disconnected from others and serving only ourselves. We risk self-gratification.

There is a reason living gratefully is a spiritual practice and not something else. It is a way of being in the world that is ongoing and constantly evolving. In turn, we are rewarded for our commitment with transformation, which helps us respond to hard things with more ease. Not because life has become easier, but because we are better practiced at being grateful, loving, and ready to act on behalf of one another. 

Photo by Marek Piwnicki

Joe Primo, Grateful Living

Joe Primo is the CEO of Grateful Living. He is a passionate speaker and community-builder whose accomplishments made him a leading voice on resilience and adversity. Gratefulness for life, he believes, is foundational to discovering meaning and the only response that is big enough and appropriate for the plot twists, delights, surprises, and devastation we encounter along the way. A student of our founder since his studies at Yale Divinity School, Joe is committed to advancing our global movement and making the transformational practice of grateful living both accessible to all and integral to communities and places of belonging. His TED talk, “Grief is Good,” reframed the grief paradigm as a responsive resource. He is the author of “What Do We Tell the Children? Talking to Kids About Death and Dying” and numerous articles.

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