I learned about gratitude lists in my recovery program. I fucking hated the concept when I first heard of it.
“LIFE IS KICKING ME IN THE NUTS, AND YOU WANT ME TO BE GRATEFUL TO SOME SHITTY GOD? ALL THIS CRAP IS COMING MY WAY, AND I’M SUPPOSED TO SAY ‘THANKS DADDY, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?’”
And yeah, done that way, gratitude lists or prayers of gratitude really wouldn’t work for me. At best it would be cheesy and insincere, and at worst an exercise in self-abasement.
But I learned that gratitude lists and prayers of thanks are tools that can work for me, if I do things my way.
It’s not about kissing the ass of some shitty Daddy Dom God and thanking him for throwing me crumbs.
It’s about reminding myself that I actually do have reasons to be sober and stay alive.
Praying in thanks for all the good things in my life helps me focus on what’s precious to me. That got me through six years clean, sober and self-harm free.
Recently I’ve had to level up. Because you see, so many of the things that made up my daily gratitude list have become past tense.
The sponsee? Dead. The boyfriend? That’s over. The cats? Two out of three will be going shortly. My coworkers? I don’t work there anymore. My bands? On hiatus, possibly permanently. Three of my other friends? Also dead.
I still have items on my gratitude list that I get to keep. The one cat that is mine and not my ex’s. My other partners. My family. This apartment. My sponsor. My friends that still live.
But I cannot help but feel how precarious it is, to have things and to love people, given all that I have lost.
So what do I do? I’m still trying to figure that out. What I have been doing is still praying in thanks for the things that I have lost, because I did have them and they were wonderful. And that reminds me that, although everything is shitty and precarious, and relationships end and buildings burn and people die, the wheel of fortune keeps turning. I can’t know what further losses await me in the future, but I also don’t know what victories and blessings may come.
And fucking crazy and cracked and whackadoodle nutso religious as it might sound, I have two things that I can never lose: my Gods and my faith.
And it’s amazing how far I can get on just that.
I don’t have all powerful Gods. And my faith does not expect that horrible painful things won’t happen to me. The only thing that my faith promises is that, when I look inside myself for that spark of divinity, I will always find it. The God in me will always give me the courage and strength to get through any bullshit life throws my way—and do so stone cold sober.
My faith promises that I need never despair, and that there is always a way to avoid killing myself– and even better, that I can always find a way to become a person I respect more.
And it turns out that, aside from certain physical necessities, that’s the only thing I actually NEED.
So today I am grateful for the fire in my belly that won’t let me quit no matter what. I’m grateful for the scars of survival. I’m grateful that I have loved fiercely enough to know immense pain. I’m grateful for all the lessons I have learned, and for all the fucked up situations I have weathered. I’m grateful that what does not kill me makes me stronger, bitch.
And herein lies a secret: when you’re a Satanist and you self-deify, gratitude gets another name: pride. Not the kind of pride that puffs you up with false confidence and makes you obnoxious. The pride that comes when you realize that, for every blessing, you ought to be thanking yourself.
You. Yes, you. You reading this. You’re fucking amazing.
You don’t have to believe as I do. You don’t have to believe shit. But in my book, Thou art God.
Verily I say unto you, you have been kicked in the posterior by life, you have been gut-punched repeatedly by circumstance, and you have climbed to your feet again. You may live on stubbornness, spite and too much caffeine, but yea verily you live on, you are risen, Glory Hallelujah! Jesus has nothing on you, you tough weirdo cockroach motherfuckers who just won’t stay down.
You are Gods. You don’t have to believe it, but I do.
Am I saying you should be totallt self-reliant, and do it all alone on your own power, which probably feels so depleted? Fuck no! I am here! We are all here! So much power and love is available to us all! Alone we are strong, but together, so much stronger!
My heart is open to you, to you, and also unto you. I see the fire in your belly too, and I am grateful for that too, and so proud of you.
Here ends the sermon. Praise be to Us. Amen.