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Share Share Your Word of Kindness & Gratitude on FacebookShare Share Your Word of Kindness & Gratitude on TwitterShare Share Your Word of Kindness & Gratitude on LinkedinEmail Share Your Word of Kindness & Gratitude link
Earlier this year, Trustee Emily Baer started a Kindness Initiative asking folks to share stories of kindness they encounter in Erie. For the month of November, she has asked to amend that initiative a little to include gratitude.
From Trustee Baer: The power of gratitude is well documented. It stimulates the regions of our brains that regulate stress and produce feelings of pleasure. Similarly, gratitude plays an important role in our community. It’s an integral part of many indigenous cultures. As we enter Native American Heritage Month, I was reading the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. It’s a recitation that sets gratitude as the highest priority. It’s called “The words that come before all else.” In the Anendaga language. The Thanksgiving Address is recited when people come together, to start the school week or before particularly contentious meetings where varying opinions are shared, for example. In the address, the orator gives thanks to fellow people, the earth, water, plants, the Creator, the four winds. And at the end of each section, they say, “now our minds are one” and then they go on to the next section, thanking teachers, the moon, the stars, … and on, again repeating “now our minds are one” at the end of each section. It’s such a beautiful representation of the power and purpose of gratitude: to bring us together on the common ground of our blessings. Indigenous Author, Robin Wall Kimerer, reminds us that “Gratitude incites a cycle of reciprocity” and “Appreciation begets abundance.”
So, for the month of November, I’d like to invite our Erie community to come together, to meet on the common ground of our shared blessings. Tell us who and what you’re grateful for and we’ll share in one another’s delight.
At the bottom of the page is a space to share your story! We hope you will sign up to share your name as well, though if you prefer, these can remain anonymous.
Note: The company providing this software service does third-party monitoring for any inappropriate submissions.
Earlier this year, Trustee Emily Baer started a Kindness Initiative asking folks to share stories of kindness they encounter in Erie. For the month of November, she has asked to amend that initiative a little to include gratitude.
From Trustee Baer: The power of gratitude is well documented. It stimulates the regions of our brains that regulate stress and produce feelings of pleasure. Similarly, gratitude plays an important role in our community. It’s an integral part of many indigenous cultures. As we enter Native American Heritage Month, I was reading the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. It’s a recitation that sets gratitude as the highest priority. It’s called “The words that come before all else.” In the Anendaga language. The Thanksgiving Address is recited when people come together, to start the school week or before particularly contentious meetings where varying opinions are shared, for example. In the address, the orator gives thanks to fellow people, the earth, water, plants, the Creator, the four winds. And at the end of each section, they say, “now our minds are one” and then they go on to the next section, thanking teachers, the moon, the stars, … and on, again repeating “now our minds are one” at the end of each section. It’s such a beautiful representation of the power and purpose of gratitude: to bring us together on the common ground of our blessings. Indigenous Author, Robin Wall Kimerer, reminds us that “Gratitude incites a cycle of reciprocity” and “Appreciation begets abundance.”
So, for the month of November, I’d like to invite our Erie community to come together, to meet on the common ground of our shared blessings. Tell us who and what you’re grateful for and we’ll share in one another’s delight.
At the bottom of the page is a space to share your story! We hope you will sign up to share your name as well, though if you prefer, these can remain anonymous.
Note: The company providing this software service does third-party monitoring for any inappropriate submissions.
Simply, I am grateful for Emily Baer, for her abiding kindness and grace, even in the face of fire, and on the most challenging days. I am grateful for her efforts to foster an appreciation for kindness in our community, because we all need it so very much, especially now.
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Frances Boardman didn’t choose to come to Colorado. A long-time Californian, she intended to stay there until a series of falls as she neared age 80 prompted her daughter to insist she move closer to her family. Frances not only made the best of the situation, but also enriched the Erie community more than most.
Within a few years she’s many friends, taken an active role in her church, utilized her teaching degree while volunteering at her grandsons’ school, shared her home with people in need, and graced the neighborhood with fresh vegetables from her garden. Everyone who visits the... Continue reading
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I still consider myself fairly new to Erie, because I moved here just before the pandemic hit and was instructed by my docs to stay home, due to my body's lung/autoimmune mishegas, as well as the chemo meds I was regularly enjoying. So, fast forward to a car-totaling accident on my way home from UCHealth Anschutz. (Separate story under the heading of "Cautionary Tales.") Luckily, no one was hurt. Months later, I was able to get another great old Subie - but like me, it had issues, and I wasn't sure it was safe to drive. I pulled into Steve... Continue reading
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Sometimes, it's the little things. Like the other day, when I absent-mindedly left a package at the counter of the post office. Just as I realized I was missing it, a young man caught up with me in the parking lot with the package in hand, and returned it to me with a smile. His thoughtful act of kindness made my day!
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
Gratitude Check
Share How often do you share gratitude with your family, friends, or coworkers? on FacebookShare How often do you share gratitude with your family, friends, or coworkers? on TwitterShare How often do you share gratitude with your family, friends, or coworkers? on LinkedinEmail How often do you share gratitude with your family, friends, or coworkers? link
Earlier this year, Trustee Emily Baer started a Kindness Initiative asking folks to share stories of kindness they encounter in Erie. For the month of November, she has asked to amend that initiative a little to include gratitude.
