Pause For Thought 20120109

With Father Brian D’Arcy, a Catholic Passionist priest.

"Since I was last speaking to you Chris, I’ve been through what was for me, a delightfully busy Christmas and an unusually peaceful New Year. One day I went for a walk on a beach and for no reason, I was overcome with a sense of gratitude that I had lived to see yet another New Year. By now I’ve learned to take nothing for granted."

There’s a story told about the poet Rudyard Kipling’s attitude to gratitude which I’ll come to later. Kipling was the first Englishman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. He went on to write Jungle Book, The Man who would be King and most famously of all “If” with immortal lines like: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…if you can dream and not make dreams your master… if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue…yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”

He believed in positive thinking. “We may have 40 million excuses for failure” he wrote, “but we don’t have a single reason.”

At the beginning of the 20th century, Kipling was reputedly the highest paid writer in the world. When he visited America, a journalist confronted him. “It has been calculated you earn more than 100 dollars a word, Mr Kipling”

Kipling was surprised, raised his eyebrows and replied: “Really? I certainly wasn’t aware of that”

The reporter reached into his pocket and handed Kipling 100 dollars. “Mr Kipling, could you please give me one of your 100 dollar words?”

Kipling took the note, folded it, put it in his pocket and said: “THANKS."

I think Kipling got it right. “Thanks” is a precious word. It might even be invaluable. That is why we should be generous with our thanks and be eternally grateful for the obvious gifts of friends, health, love and life itself."