By Nino Ridgway

I’ve been thinking a lot about our sharing of Joys and Sorrows. 

Many years ago I was in a very tough place in my life.  I had been badly betrayed by people who had been the foundation of my existence, and I was so full of sorrow I thought I might break.  Getting through each day was a monumental effort, like walking miles in waist deep water.  I began attending Madison Friends Meeting, where I sat in the back and wept.  A Friend noticed my sadness and reached out to me, and I am forever grateful to her for her kindness and wisdom.

I lived near the Arboretum, and one windy, clear, cold December night I couldn’t stand to be indoors anymore.  As I walked out into the Arboretum I was suddenly filled with gratitude for everything that was RIGHT with my life.  I shouted up to the moon “Thank you for my housemates!”  The wind carried my gratitude away.  Then “Thank you for this cold clear night!”  “I’m grateful that I am healthy!”  “Thank you for my parents, my brother, my sister.”  “I’m so happy for my fellow students and my major professor who all have my back.”  “I’m so thankful I have a car and a bicycle.”  And on and on and on it went, faster and faster, each new gratitude tripping hard on the heels of the one before.  I was grateful for EVERYTHING!  I started laughing.  Later I went back home, smiling, and slept well.  Somehow from this great sadness I had discovered a road to joy.

In the days ahead, there was plenty more debilitating depression.  Sorrow sometimes felt overwhelming and all-encompassing to me, like nothing would ever be right again.  But when I remembered to give thanks for all that was right in my life, the sorrow didn’t seem all that big. In one way or another I have continued to this day the practice of giving thanks.  It is one way for me to stoke the fires of the Light Within.  Sometimes I shout it.  Sometimes I whisper.  Sometimes I just hold it in my heart.