When you think about it, saying "Thank you," is one of the first manners we encourage small children to adopt. This simple practice of remembering to thank the people around us is so basic to positive human interactions that, when absent, it is a glaring rudeness that paints the withholding party as arrogant.

Somewhere along the line, then, we've learned that gratitude for services rendered or a job well done is an appropriate and meaningful human to human response in life.

But what about thankfulness as a spiritual practice and a way of life?

In Psalm 50, the poet is speaking for God when he says--

"I don't need bulls from your farms or goats from your herds. All the animals in the forest are mine and the cattle on thousands of hills. All the wild birds are mine and all living thingsin the land... Let the GIVING OF THANKS be your sacrifice to God..."

So, I’m in church on Sunday, at Metro Hope in Harlem. Pastor Humphries is talking about relationships. To be honest, one of the best “sermons” I have ever experienced on the topic. I started thinking about Ticia, my bride of nearly twenty years. Somehow, as my brain randomly connects things, I also thought about Facebook and the “25 things about me” phenomena. To be honest, while I like reading others, I don’t really want to write one, probably for the same reasons as you.

I started thinking about a different kind of list. Not about me, but about my spouse. What if we started a “ten things I love about my spouse” phenomena? Not all gushy, not cheesy. Just ten things that you love about your spouse.

So, I started this on my Facebook page, tagged a bunch of my friends. Same Facebook rules apply. If I tagged a person, I encouraged them to write ten things about their spouse and then tag a few friends.