“Start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart.” ~ Roy T. Bennett

Gratitude can feel heavy in a hungry world.

Tonight, the inviting smells of garlic, curry, and garam masala drift through my cozy home. Candles flicker in the living room, soft music hums in the background, and my husband and I have more than enough food for leftovers.

A quiet peace rises within me.

As I sit down to eat, I silently thank all the invisible hands that helped put this meal here: the immigrant and non-immigrant farm workers, truck drivers, grocery clerks, and warehouse workers.

And then, instantly, my feeling of peace shifts as I ask myself:

How many of these workers can even afford the food they deliver to us?

How many of these workers are homeless, standing in food lines, or choosing between rent, medicine, and groceries? How many are living with fear, uncertainty, or have loved ones missing from their lives?

In the middle of my emotional tug-of-war of gratitude, heartbreak, guilt, and love, something in me shifts again. I sit up straighter as I remember the truth that steadies me every time: kindness multiplies.

I breathe a little more deeply as this message settles into me once again. Every day, people continue to step up.

They, and we, are ordinary heroes choosing to live the simple motto, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Neighbors are stocking food pantries and delivering meals.

Churches, synagogues, and mosques are opening their doors for community dinners.

Restaurants are offering free or pay-what-you-can meals.

Families are setting an extra place at the table—just in case.

I recently read about someone who made a huge pot of lentil soup and left jars on neighbors’ doorsteps with notes saying, “Made with love.” The next day, a note appeared on their own doorstep: “You have no idea how much that meant.”

Whether that’s a true story, or an anecdote for our times, it hits home.

When I think about the generosity, tenderness, and quiet goodness that still exist in the world, a gentle whisper rises within me again: “Remember, Melody…gratitude.”

A Bigger Table

What happens around our dinner table mirrors what’s happening in our country and our world. We’re one big, messy human family—beautiful and complicated, hopeful and weary.

We carry within us negative and positive thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.

We can be numb, afraid, openhearted, overwhelmed, compassionate, or exhausted.

We can be the best of ourselves and, at times, the worst.

Some people have more than they need, and others have nothing. Some are hungry for food; others are hungry for kindness, safety, belonging, or hope.

And through it all, I often remind myself of the saying: “But for the grace of God go I.” 

There is no separation between “them and us.” I am you, and you are me. We are all one. Whatever happens to you could happen to me, too.

We are the elderly needing to choose between groceries and medicine.

We are the single parent turning one loaf of bread into four meals.

We are the children whose only full meal comes from school (if the budget still allows for it).

We are the immigrants suddenly taken away as one of “the disappearing” as we silently wonder, “Will it be me, too, someday?”

What Can we Do?

I’m learning, slowly, that becoming a “bigger table” begins inside the heart long before it happens on the dinner plate. I remind myself that sharing what I can, however I can, matters.

A pot of soup won’t fix the world, but it can change someone’s day, and sometimes that’s exactly the beginning that’s needed.

The hardest part is the emotional choreography inside us: the dance of darkness and light swirling together. I often wonder:

“How long can I sustain this heartache? How can I feel so much and still move forward with joy and hope?”

We start by telling ourselves the truth. Gratitude, guilt, grief, and love don’t take turns. They all pull up a chair at the same table.

This wisdom helps me to stay awake to suffering even when it hurts, pack an extra grocery bag when someone needs one, let the lump in my throat remind me that empathy can turn into action, and above all, do one small thing that says to someone, “I see you. You matter.”

Love Notes for a Complicated Season

It’s okay that gratitude and guilt sit together, and it’s okay that empathy sometimes stings.

What matters is what we do with the ache inside us.

I do my best to be informed of the news without letting it destroy me, breathe deeply, appreciate the tiny joys, look up at the wide-open sky, move my body in nature, take care of myself, and stretch conversations beyond the food on the table.

Whether you’re with family, with one beloved, with a stranger, or sitting alone, the spiritual anchor of unconditional love, gratitude, kindness, and full presence is its own high vibrational energy put into action.

This season, and every season, join me in stepping into our personal power and our ability to be leaders of love, kindness, and gratitude, because every time we share the best part of ourselves, we build a bigger metaphorical table of love, strength, unity, and connection.

Gratitude doesn’t ask us to look away from injustice. It asks us to keep our eyes open long enough to see the whole table and help make sure that everyone has a seat at it.

Gratitude, guilt, grief, and love all sit down together, and every small act of kindness ripples outward. Mahatma Gandhi said it simply and beautifully:

“The best way to find ourselves is to lose ourselves in the service of others.”

~