For All That Has Been, Thanks: Growing a Sense of Gratitude

Rowan Williams, writing in partnership with the bestselling American Benedictine author, Joan Chittister, explores the meaning of a word often spoken in Christian worship, but rarely considered. What are we doing when we say the word ‘Alleluia’? In the Old Testament, it is a summons to praise - when it feels appropriate and when it doesn’t. In the New Testament it becomes part of the language of praise, used at all times, even to this day in the funeral liturgies in the Eastern Orthodox church. Here then is a clue - it is a call to see the whole of life ‘as one long Alleluia moment’ as the authors put it, to discover the richness and manifestations of God even when they are hidden from us. Some things we naturally feel grateful for - life, health, comfort, pleasure - but how is it possible to say ‘Alleluia’ to the parts of life that weigh us down and drain our spirits dry? This book aims to give some very practical answers to how we cultivate ‘an Alleluia view’ of every present moment, to find the meaning in Dag Hammerskold’s famous words: ‘For all that has been, thanks - for all that shall be, yes.