Coming out of our Easter Sunday celebration, even while it was different from any other we have experienced before, we pray you were inspired and reminded of the WHY of our faith.  Jesus’ death and resurrection is the event which gives us meaning – without this event, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “If Christ hasn’t been raised, then our preaching is useless and your faith is useless.”  That is why this Sunday was also the beginning of our next sermon series, “Living Hope – the Promise of Easter.”  During the next six weeks, leading into Pentecost Sunday, we will continue to make sense of the living hope Jesus offers us as his disciples, a hope which transforms our thinking and actions and gives us a new imagination with which to see this world.

Part of this imagination involves living with gratitude, for the great gift of salvation we have been given but also for all the ways God blesses us in our daily lives.  Brother David Steindl-Rast is a Benedictine monk who founded an organization called A Network for Grateful Living.  He outlines the following steps for living with gratitude in our world: