If my mother baked me a chocolate cake, and I ate all of it and didn’t even say thank you, that’s a thing worth apologizing for. She has given me this gift and a central piece of this gift is the gratitude for it. It’s not transactional, but to recieve a gift is an evocation of thanks, a feeling of fullness and appreciation and love. To ignore or even to simply not indulge that feeling of gratitude is to rob oneself of perhaps the best part of a gift, even one as delicious as a chocolate cake. It’s also rude.

Many Orthodox prayers revolve around begging for mercy.

I’ve never begged a person for mercy in my life. I’ve never felt the need to do that. Further, many of my prayers before prior to joining a church were about gratitude and praise.

I am very thankful for my life, and cultivating that gratitude feels not only Good, but right. 

It’s the scale I find most fascinating now.

If my mother baked me a cake I would thank her, if I didn’t thank her I’d ask her to accept my apology for not thanking her properly.

What is the proper way to show gratitude a gift that is everything? 

How are you meant to behave when you’ve spent your life squandering that gift?

I guess you could beg for mercy.