The Innateness of Gratitude

You Will Know It When You Cannot Say It

Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.
- Felix Frankfurter

It is true. Gratitude, at its deepest and most sincere, cannot be expressed through words. The voice of this gratitude does not manifest itself in an utterance from one's mouth. You may fumble over the simplest of phrases, stutter, and even gasp to catch your breath, but try as you might, this level of gratitude is not meant for language. It is communicated through feeling. 

The heart is steeped in emotion and with every pulse, the body becomes a living vessel of gratitude that may quiver and shake, but words will continue to fail, yet there is no mistaking the sensation. It will be known that you are grateful and no one will question your feeble tongue. The gratitude you feel in that moment will spread through you and touch those around you. The depth of that gratitude may be so great that words fail those within your presence, but an extended hand or warm embrace will be the indicators that the feeling is understood and shared.

If you have never experienced gratitude of this magnitude before, you will know it when you cannot say it.

Kindness is not Weakness

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution. - Kahlil Gibran

If your strength manifests through being unkind, through being harsh and unwelcoming, through defending your vulnerability with walls of insults and offenses, then you, my friend, are not strong at all. You are a weak victim, shackled on a chain of cruelty that has hijacked your better nature; the best version of you that you can be. You are the quivering shadow behind a stone that hides from the sun as the rest of the world is baked in glowing warmth.

You will not know your true strength until you step into the light and stand against the darkness that once comprised the defense of your being. Only then will you see how weak you once were. 

"For Our Fallen" on Memorial Day

While this poem is most commonly read overseas in Europe during memorial ceremonies, it speaks to the memory of all men and women who have fallen in the midst of combat, whose valor and commitment to service should never be forgotten. For them, we are grateful.

For The Fallen
By Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, 
England mourns for her dead across the sea. 
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, 
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal 
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. 
There is a music in the midst of desolation 
And a glory that shines upon our tears. 

They went with songs to the battle, they were young, 
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. 
They were staunch to the end against odds uncountered: 
They fell with their faces to the foe. 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn. 
At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
We will remember them. 

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; 
They sit no more at familiar tables at home; 
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; 
They sleep beyond England's foam. 

But where our desires are and our hopes profound, 
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, 
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known 
As the stars are known to the Night; 

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, 
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; 
As the stars are starry in the time of our darkness, 
To the end, to the end they remain.