I’ve been considering life rafts recently.

For some reason, my mind turns to Titanic style life boats, along with the cutting edge cork life vests.

Little boats tossing and turning on the dark and stormy seas of life.

But I’ve been thinking more about metaphysical life rafts.

The kind of thing that gets you through some of the worst days of your lives.

Sometimes it might be your dog (or cat, or rabbit, or mouse, or goldfish, or whatever other kind of companion animal you have. Though dogs are more generally known as assistance animals).

Other times, it might be a child that waves at you from a train, or the person who holds the door or lift for you. The customer service person who goes the extra mile to bring a thingamabob from out the back. Or the sandwich maker who gives you a little extra cheese in your sandwhich.

And these days, someone who still carries cash, and doesn’t mind giving you a couple of coins when all you have is your phone.

(I’m not entirely sure where my wallet is, let alone whether there’s any cash in it).

But possibly the best, most portable, and self sufficient thing is gratitude.

Counting your blessings one by one.

The world seems very dark and confusing at the moment, what with wars, inflation and so on.

And some days, when everything goes wrong, it seems all we have left is gratitude.

And the hope of something better.

Plus the suspicion, that if we thought about it at all, the situation could be a whole lot worse.

So we cling desperately to gratitude, hoping our life raft will wash up some place better.

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