Diana Butler Bass: Turning Gratitude Inside Out

Diana Butler Bass took everything I thought I knew about gratitude and turned it inside out. I’m not alone. Most of those in attendance came with a sense of how gratitude would be a helpful perspective in a time of chaos but Diana Butler Bass approached the subject in a way that caught everyone completely off guard.

She shared her work using material she’d researched for over a year and then distilled into her new book on gratitude. Diana did not just talk about her insights – she carried us along with her as she made the journey completing it during the first 100 days of the Trump Administration.

Gratitude – the latest of her books – offers a startling new lens through which to understand the deeply disturbing perspective of gratitude and obligation being acted out in the United States today. It challenges people of faith to meet a pyramid of privilege and indebtedness with an alternative understanding of community and generosity rooted in our many faith traditions.

As a Christian theologian, Diana Butler Bass carefully peels back the layers of symbols in some of our Judeo-Christian teachings under this fresh lens. She invites us to look at how other faiths offer their own views.