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Loading... Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks (2018)by Diana Butler Bass
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I spent several Novembers being purposefully grateful, I thought--every day identifying something I was grateful for and blogging about it. This November I read this book and realized I was missing so much of what gratitude really means. This book is deceptively dense and begs for multiple readings. I plan on making this my new November tradition--rereading this book. ( ) For my full, non-spoiler review: https://christianlovingbooks.blogspot.com/2018/11/grateful-review.html This book was a disappointment and I just couldn't finish it. I was expecting something different based on the author's background and the book jacket blurb. Yes, it focuses on gratefulness with both a historic and contemporary understanding of this concept. And the author, who identifies herself as a Christian, includes results of the extensive research she undertook on the topic. What I really didn't like was her skewed theology. In the second chapter she took several basic Bible verses and uniquely, in an unbiblical way, interpreted them to fit her book's thesis. As she calls herself a Christian, I wasn't expecting an alternative, reduced perspective. If you want to read a contemporary book about gratitude from a Christian writer, read Help, Thanks, Wow or Small Victories by Anne Lamott. no reviews | add a review
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HTML: The author of the multiple award-winning Grounded and leading trend spotter in contemporary Christianity explores why gratitude is missing as a modern spiritual practice, offers practical suggestions for reclaiming it, and illuminates how the shared practice of gratitude can lead to greater connection with God, our world, and our own souls. More and more people are finding God beyond the walls of traditional religious institutions, but these seekers often miss the church community itself, including its shared spiritual practices such as gratitude. While four out of five Americans have told pollsters they feel gratitude in their daily lives, cultural commentator and religion expert Diana Butler Bass finds that claim to be at odds with the discontent that permeates modern society. There is a gap, she argues, between our desire to be grateful and our ability to behave gratefullyâ??a divide that influences our understanding of morality, worship, and institutional religion itself. In Grateful, Bass challenges readers to think about the impact gratitude has in our spiritual lives, and encourages them to make gratitude a "difficult and much-needed spiritual practice for our personal lives and to make a better world." Grateful is partially an individual, emotional response to our circumstances, but research has shown that what we often miss is how much more it is a communal, actionable response. Bass examines this more unexpected experience of gratitude, and reveals how people and communities can practice it and thrive, whether or not they are part of a traditional religious community. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)241.4Religions Christian Devotional Literature and Practical Theology Christian Ethics Doing goodLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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