Thanks Be for These: Meditations on Life and Death

There is an almost desperate quest for spirituality in our time. The “nones” claim to be spiritual, but not religious. Gurus abound; “quick fixes” are everywhere. In Thanks Be for These the Rev. Richard Gilbert provides a spiritual starting point for both the “spiritual” and the “religious” seeker. Here is a collection of meditations written from the perspective of a mystical religious humanist.

Gilbert claims that gratitude is at the heart of the religious experience. It is fundamentally a spiritual act. We are grateful, in the first place, for being itself. Everything else is a bonus. This gratitude is expressed not in the philosophical abstract but in the existential concrete. It is details of the everyday which make life worth living despite our finitude and the inherent messiness of existence.

Gilbert divides the book in two sections—“Thanksliving” for the blessings of being; and “Gratitude in Grief,” a collection of materials designed for memorial services at time of death.

Thanks Be for These challenges us to dig deeply into the meaning of our lives. These meditations on gratitude place the responsibility of living gratefully squarely on us—where it belongs.

Richard S. Gilbert is the author of meditations and books on social justice. A retired minister, he holds degrees from St. Lawrence University, Meadville/Lombard Theological School, and Starr King School for the Ministry. He lives with his wife Joyce in Rochester, NY, where they enjoy time with their three grandchildren.