Once you grasp the nature of unconditional love, you realize there is a higher order of complexity that is unfolding within human consciousness as a whole. Then you receive the next gift of the angel light -- humility, perhaps the hardest gift to accept. In the angel light, there is no room for self-importance -- it is, in fact, a major obstacle. Instead, it is necessary to surrender all our false pride. Humility ultimately teaches us that all life is sacred -- a gift of the divine union of form and the formless.
What I find distinct about gratitude in the wilderness is its simplicity -- the thankfulness I feel here is for what I usually take for granted: my capacity to breathe, move and see ... For the most part, gratitude here wells up unexpectedly, in the quiet corners of the day, over events small and ordinary. Gratitude is the other side of dependence on God: to take anything for granted in the wilderness seems presumptuous, blasphemous. And so, here in these naves of vaulting stone, prayers of thanksgiving begin to edge out prayers of petition.