“In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered that fear and gratitude don’t exist in the same parts of our brains. Fear resides in the amygdala, the ‘reptilian’ part of our brain. Feelings of gratitude activate our neo-cortex, the front of the brain with our ‘higher thinking’ and more recently evolved capabilities. Indeed, researchers now believe that gratitude and fear cannot exist at the same time – that gratitude actually processes fear, effectively driving fear out, taming it, giving us human beings the possibility of acting with courage, hope, joy, compassion.
So when Jesus shows up at that table on the evening of the empty tomb in the room where a feast had become a funeral, a new table is set. It’s a table of gratitude – the gifts of God for the people of God – with the power to drive out fear.”
Diana Butler Bass, author and scholar specializing in American religion and culture, from Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks