Comes The Dawn

25

LET’S COUNT OUR BLESSINGS

My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy.

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

Our habits, good and bad, often have strange origins. Rarely can one explain the forces that set up a behavior pattern, nor can I do more than trace the history of a good habit of mine—born in 1964.

We were conducting three successive FEE Seminars at the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. This Saturday was my 66th birthday. Overflowing with gratitude at the way things were going, not only with the Seminars but with me personally, I scribbled on my writing pad 66 blessings—in a few minutes. After finishing, I destroyed the sheet. There was a purpose behind this gesture: Learn to reflect on each day’s blessings as sufficient for that day without reference to previous recordings. By following this practice each birthday since 1964, counting my blessings has become a daily habit—and a rewarding one!

There’s a second incident, reinforcing the first. A year later, while conducting a Seminar in Missouri, a deeply religious individual asked, “What is the significance of the Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not covet’?” Never having pondered that one before, I gave him what is a correct answer to many questions, “I do not know.” However, the query kept nagging at me—a challenge that wouldn’t down.

After considerable reflection, I realized that this Commandment—the tenth—is more important than all but the first. Covetousness—envy—lies at the root of stealing, killing, bearing false witness, and other evils. My conclusion: To the extent that the souls of Americans are cleansed of envy and covetousness, to that extent will we be graced with stalwart, righteous citizens. What’s the formula for ridding ourselves of these traits? Count our blessings!

As related to this thesis, there is an attitude that dominates thinking and another that could become dominant. Voltaire expressed my views: “The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”

Just as obvious: “The longer we dwell on our blessings, the greater is their power to improve us.”

As to the first attitude, one should, by all means, be keenly aware of the misfortunes which beset society. Properly assessed, they are steppingstones to truth—blessings in disguise. Learn the wrong, to find the right!

Voltaire, however, had in mind the common attitude he observed in his time—two centuries ago—which is precisely what we observe in the U.S.A. today: citizens by the millions dwelling only on the countless misfortunes. The result of this myopic, unperceptive, shortsighted view? Ruled by pessimism, hopelessness, despair, such persons become crepehangers, doubting Thomases, worrywarts. Harm to themselves? The famous Dr. Charles Mayo wrote:

Worry affects the circulation—the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system. I have never known a man who died from overwork, but many who died from doubt.

These people not only do irreparable harm to their own lives but a disservice to the rest of us and, may I add, to the cause of human liberty. No truth was ever advanced by dwelling only on man-made misfortunes founded, as they are, on ignorance or untruths or outright lies!

Turn now from the negative to the positive, from dwelling on our misfortunes to dwelling on our blessings, from looking hellward to peering heavenward, from that which harms to that which improves. If enough of us do this our countrymen “will know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy.” Too high an aspiration? A bit of reflection will easily replace misery with joy, forlornness with hopefulness.

Conceded, no person will ever count all of his or her blessings. The human being does not exist who can count that far—our blessings border on the Infinite. Every heartbeat is a blessing, as is every breath, all discoveries, inventions, insights, intuitive flashes that have advanced truth and human welfare since the dawn of consciousness. So numerous, they stagger the imagination—delightfully!

Thomas Jefferson’s reference was to the countless blessings Americans enjoy relative to people of other nationalities who lived at his time and before. Imagine, the greatest outburst of creative energy in all history, each individual, regardless of his or her station, free to act creatively; serfdom squelched, dictocrats unseated—the American miracle! My explanation of this phenomenon, with its unrecognized blessings galore, is in the third chapter of this volume. Jefferson had reason aplenty to lament the dearth of appreciation—this blindness to blessings—in his time. Were he among us today, what would his phrasing be? My guess: “Thank God! I can at least count my own blessings.”

Well, in this respect, give America some more Jeffersons! Why is it that the more we dwell on our blessings, the greater is their power to improve us? There are more reasons than I shall ever know, but here are three:

• When the eye is cast on one’s blessings, covetousness is overwhelmed; there remains no envy to darken the soul.

• Dwelling on our blessings aligns us with reality. Blessings, as heartbeats, are so commonplace that, short of conscious effort, they are not recognized. Counting them, day in and day out, impresses upon our minds how greatly they grace our lives and how relatively insignificant are our misfortunes.

• Individuals who are reaching for this truth are learning. By their own enlightened prescription, they are teachable. And as the Third Beatitude has it, “The teachable shall inherit the earth.”1

What is meant by “earth” as here used? To repeat what I have written before, it has nothing to do with acres of diamonds, soil, rock. Rather, it relates to man’s earthly potentialities: the evolution or emergence of individual faculties, a growth in awareness, perception, consciousness.

Stated another way, those who have so gained a control of themselves as to allow the search for Truth to take charge of their lives are the ones who have the capacity to live their earthly lives to the full: to them the real treasures of this mortal life belong.

To me, the Third Beatitude means: The teachable shall be graced with a realization of their potentialities. How do we become teachable? The simplest of all formulas: Count our blessings! Not only our numberless personal blessings but, as well, the blessings bestowed on us by Thomas Jefferson and others among America’s Founding Fathers!

• 1In Roman mythology, Aurora is the goddess of dawn.