Gratitude, Awareness, and the Quiet Strength of Enough
Editor’s Note
This week’s Collective turns toward gratitude.
To live with gratitude is to live awake — to recognize that what we already hold is not small. Gratitude opens our eyes to the treasures
we overlook, the simple things that sustain us day after day.
In a world that praises the pursuit of more, gratitude points us back to the satisfaction of enough.
Featured Story
~ The Grace of Enough ~
Before the day ramps up, I sit outside by the pool, watching the morning light move through the leaves. There’s something hidden in the stillness that I can’t quite name.
It’s not that I forget to be thankful. It’s that I keep waiting for something bigger before I say it. But sometimes the quiet slows you long enough to see that grace has been here all along.
Gratitude doesn’t make you stop working or dreaming. It just changes what drives you. You stop striving to earn what’s already been given — whether that’s acceptance, belonging, forgiveness, or grace itself.
The sun’s morning light hasn’t changed from what it has always been. The leaves still shimmer the same way. Nothing is different except the eyes that see it.
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given.”
Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
~ Frederick Buechner
Explosions in the Sky ~ “Your Hand in Mine”
Built on patience and repetition, this song grows without hurry — a steady rise that feels both grounded and alive. It sounds like gratitude in motion, the quiet realization
that enough was never about having more but about seeing what’s already here.
Listen on YouTube →
Life of the Beloved ~ Henri Nouwen
Nouwen invites us into a life rooted in being chosen and loved—an identity established before accomplishment or earning. He writes, “Every time we decide to be grateful it will be
easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.”
Book summary →
Podcast: On Being: David Steindl-Rast — How to Be Grateful in Every Moment
A Benedictine monk reflects on gratitude as the posture of a life lived awake. He reminds us that gratefulness isn’t a feeling to chase but a way of seeing what’s already been given.
Article: The Art of Manliness: Cultivating Gratitude in a Culture of More
A practical and grounded look at gratitude as a form of strength. It argues that thankfulness steadies a man’s spirit by teaching him to value what endures over what accumulates.
Read → artofmanliness.com
Video: David Brooks — The Lies Our Culture Tells Us About What Matters — and a Better Way to Live (TED Talk)
Brooks challenges the modern obsession with achievement and independence, offering instead a life built on gratitude, humility, and service.
Watch → YouTube
“Grace is what we’re given. Gratitude is when we finally see it.”
“The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom.” ~ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
“The ordinary is not the opposite of miraculous.”
Choose one ordinary moment this week and treat it like a gift.
Don’t try to improve it, photograph it, or turn it into something useful. Just be still long enough to notice what’s already been given.
Say a quiet thank-you — not for what’s missing, but for what’s here.
Thank you for reading The Sunday Evening Collective.
May this week slow your pace and steady your heart.
May you find that what you already have — and
who you already have — is enough.
Until next Sunday, keep chasing the kangaroo.
Chase The Kangaroo 
Leave a comment