Alfred Fiedler: "Gratitude" is a central theme in your life and work. You have also set up "gratitude circles". Just recently, an acquaintance, Sibylle Eisenburger, raved about it and, inspired by you, she is organising gratitude circles herself. She also sends you her best regards.
David Steindl-Rast: I see. I'm always happy when I hear about these gratitude circles in different places.
Bernhard Marckhgott: This word THANK YOU, what does that do to people? That you believe in it so much, in this healing power or effectiveness? The positive aspect of this word THANK YOU - how did you come to this realisation?
David Steindl-Rast: It's not about saying thank you. It's simply a question of politeness. It's about an attitude of gratitude. And in order to talk about this, you have to start with trust, namely trust in life. For our grandparents it was called trust in God, for us today it is called trust in life. There really is no difference, from a Christian point of view: God is the God of life. Whether you call it trust in life or trust in God is irrelevant. I prefer to summarise it under trust in life, because the word God is very much misused and misunderstood. And many people today lack confidence in life. They are afraid.
Bernhard Marckhgott: And how should we use the word God?
David Steindl-Rast: It is not necessary. It's not a matter of convincing someone to use this or that language. It's just a matter of learning and communicating an attitude. The attitude is one of trust, and I'll start with trust in life because you can talk about it with anyone, whether they want to say God or not.
You can talk to anyone about trust in life. And you can show everyone that the only reasonable attitude a person can have is trust in life. Reasonable! Because every moment, every second, 2 million red blood cells are renewed in our body. Every second: 2 million die and 2 million are created. No scientist can even visualise a red blood cell down to the last detail, let alone produce it. And this is just one of thousands of functions that take place in us.
It is much more correct to say that life lives us than to say that we have life. Life lives us and we bear responsibility. And from this trust in life, i.e. if I trust life, I must also trust the other person. After all, life sends me the other person.
So the next step is to listen at every moment. Life has a gift for me every moment. And you ask yourself, what is life giving me now? Life also gives me a task! If we fulfil this, we have fulfilled everything that Christian teaching or any other religion could wish for. And we have a peaceful world.
We can have a personal relationship with life - that is very mysterious.
In Christian language it says: "In God we live, weave and are." (this is from a letter by St Paul). We can also have a personal relationship with this life when we say that life gives us something - then this is not just a humanisation, a metaphor, but it is true - something really is given to us. And gratitude arises in us for this. And that is an attitude: to ask in every moment, what is life giving me now? And if it is a free gift - to trust that it is a good gift. And then I can't help but feel grateful, and then gratitude rises up.
The gift within every gift is the opportunity!
It's not this glass of water. (points to the glass of water in front of him) This glass of water could also be out there and be out of my reach. But it is here in front of me and I am grateful that it is here and that I can drink it. I am grateful for the opportunity!
The only gift in every gift that you can be grateful for is always the opportunity. The opportunity - mostly - to be happy. You overlook that completely. But once you start, you realise: 90% of the time is an opportunity to be happy. This changes life completely and makes it more joyful.
This has also been scientifically proven. People who write down a sentence every day, a thing they are grateful for, are healthier. We have this scientific evidence.
Opportunity is sometimes not so easy to find. When I sit in front of the television and see horrific crimes, war and so on, what is the opportunity to be grateful? That my attention is drawn to it, that life gives me a question or a challenge. It's an opportunity to do something. And if at first I think I can't do anything, then I can ask myself, what can I do? That is also something.
Alfred Fiedler: The fact that even the impulse offers the opportunity to ask what I can do is a captivating thought.
Bernhard Marckhgott: Do you think today's world is more characterised by egoism and the "I" than in the past? And how can we achieve a WE? I think that would be important, because a WE is always stronger and more social than an ME.
David Steindl-Rast: You're absolutely right - our time is characterised by 'I' thinking. The big challenge is to develop a WE mindset. For one very simple reason: because we can only solve the challenges we face together. It's not about my ideas, my advantages, but about looking at the issue together. So it's not about arguing or whatever you do with the other person - even patting them on the back is superfluous - but about looking at the problem together. Only if we all look at the problem together can we solve it. Because it's a problem that affects us all. And that applies to every problem: Environment. Education. Artificial intelligence. War. Whatever.
Bernhard Marckhgott: Am I quoting you correctly: I once heard you say that "our systems have reached an end". What did you mean by that, in what context?
David Steindl-Rast: I meant the system and what we mean by system today is difficult to explain in a nutshell. I have explained all these keywords in my book "Orientation". We speak colloquially of the 'system' as that which disrupts everything. Evil, in fact. The 'system' is actually evil, in our language.
A teacher complains about the system, a doctor complains about the system, citizens complain about the system.
I always say: don't confuse the system with medicine, don't confuse the education system with education. The 'system' is what's wrong, that's what we mean. And it's not something that should be so powerful that it destroys everything.
It's a hole, a lack - that's the 'system'. Something is missing. Everything that is there, in terms of education, medicine, etc., is good. What is there is good. Only what is missing is bad - and that has to be replaced. The bad is not something that exists in the world - a devil walking around. That is also the strictest Catholic theory:
Evil is nothing but the absence of the good that should be there. How should I imagine that? An example that is easy to understand: an aeroplane and everything on it works perfectly, a single small screw in the engine is loose, falls out and the whole plane with 250 people crashes. What was to blame? Nothing, just the lack of a screw.
Everything that ever goes wrong in the world is all about the missing screw. And then you ask yourself how this absence comes about and builds up to such a power, which is actually just a hole where something is missing.
That's why it's so important to see where we can do something!
Another example: you go out every day and buy the newspaper. One day, out of absent-mindedness, you pick up the newspaper and don't say 'Good morning'. The man who sold you the newspaper is disgruntled. The next person who comes to him is treated unpleasantly by him. And he passes it on. And so it continues with the next person and the one after that. It grows, square by square, and so evil is born. But we have a choice: we can also be kind and it continues to grow, exponentially.
Alfred Fiedler: The #schongenial initiative addresses precisely this consideration: Attention , mindfulness, recognising the achievements that are accomplished on a daily basis and treating each other with respect. Appreciation as a central element of everyday life.
David Steindl-Rast: Where something is missing, evil begins, where something is present, good begins. It's not two powers fighting with each other. Where something is there that should be, existence begins to blossom, where something is missing, it begins to wither.
Alfred Fiedler: That's a great confirmation for me. At #schongenial we have three principles: Putting what we have in common in society before what divides us. Making positive things visible and raising awareness. And a commitment to more appreciation in everyday life. Would you add anything to that?
David Steindl-Rast: No, that's wonderful. But I would just emphasise that it's not just headlines and slogans that are out there. But that you take each of these three words very carefully and emphasise what each individual person can do - this morning.
Alfred Fiedler: This is in line with Mahatma Gandhi's principle: Be the change you wish to see in the world. We have also deliberately designed this initiative to grow from the bottom up. Is that a good idea?
David Steindl-Rast: Yes, a very good idea!
Alfred Fiedler: Well, we have your spiritual blessing! [laughs]
David Steindl-Rast: Thank you very much!
Bernhard Marckhgott: We say thank you!
