Do you have gravy in your life?

I found myself thinking about Raymond Carver and his poem “Gravy,” which was about being told he had six months to live and then getting an extra decade of life. The poem had been written when he knew his time had finally run out. Lung cancer had him in its grip and wasn’t going to let him go.

…“Don’t weep for me,” he said to his friends. “I’m a lucky man. I’ve had ten years longer than I or anyone expected. Pure gravy. And don’t forget it.”

That was a good way to think of it. Every day of life, now, was gravy. Thank you, Ray. And I too can “call myself beloved,” I have felt myself “beloved on the earth.” Hated, yes, that too, but “beloved” trumps all hate.

Rushdie, Salman. Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (pp. 170-171). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

As one grows older and grows in wisdom, in spite of the ups and downs of one’s life, a person who experiences increasing levels of gratitude has lived the good life.

Brother David Stendl- Rast teaches that the best prayer is one of gratitude.

Salman Rushdie with all that he has been through living his life under the fatwa and then the knifing after 33 years is filled with gratitude for the “gravy” which he has experienced in his life.

What do you make of that?

To what extent do you experience gratitude in your life?

Me?

I feel more and more grateful every day, week, month, year that I live at the age, now, of 79.

Salman is my kind of guy.