Generosity and Gratitude

Generosity and Gratitude: A Philosophical Psalm gives expression, in free verse, to our common human experience of generosity and gratitude. It opens with rejoicing at the presence of the abundance characterizing our world of sky, sea, and land, and laments in sorrow the scarcity we experience in that same world. In joyful response to abundance, the psalm continues as a meditative reflection on singers singing a song. Singing serves as a model for understanding generosity, which in turn corrects the lamentable scarcities we experience. In singing, or in any act of generosity, we enrich others with the gift of our own loving presence. The psalm then celebrates gratitude as the ideal response to abundance arising out of generosity. We are grateful for such abundance and thankful to those whose generous actions are its sources, human and divine. Generosity and Gratitude: A Philosophical Psalm includes a postscript that presents selected brief affirmations of several of the world’s religious and ethical traditions concerning generosity and gratitude. This philosophically informed psalm will provide enriching personal reading and serve as a helpful point of reference in philosophical, ethical, and religious discussions.

Dale M. Schlitt, O.M.I., is the former Rector of Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada, and presently teaches in its Faculty of Philosophy. He received his PhD in religion from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. He is the author of Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim: A Critical Reflection (1984), Divine Subjectivity: Understanding Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion (1990, paperback 2009), Theology and the Experience of God (Peter Lang, 2001), Experience and Spirit: A Post-Hegelian Philosophical Theology (Peter Lang, 2007), and Saint Paul University: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (2008).