The Power of Gratitude: Charting a Path toward a Joyous and Faith-Filled Life
Ebook
The Power of Gratitude reflects on the experiences of Michael and Elizabeth Garry, who became an inspiration in their community, to reveal the secret to a life filled with the virtues we often consider unattainable. Michael and Elizabeth demonstrated how true gratitude might be foundational to everything else: the attribute that enables one to love without interruption, serve without expectation, persevere without anguish, and find joy in every minute of life. Gratitude is not just a thank you for a specific benefit, it is a way of life.
Based on their lives, a self-improvement conference could be condensed to one sentence: if you nurture an enduring gratitude--and not just a thankfulness for particular events--then you may find a deep joy, as opposed to transitory excitements. The lesson they taught: find gratitude, and you will find the person God meant you to be.
The Power of Gratitude also reflects on the divisiveness of contemporary society. In ungrateful times, there can be no social peace. Rivalries fueled by resentments replace the unity and generosity that flow from a culture of gratitude. But when gratitude dispels fear, it can inspire the courage to live in a way that fuels future gratitude.
“After having read this memoir, I would suspect that Mike and Liz Garry would bristle a bit to be called saints, but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that these two were some of God’s choicest servants. Patrick Garry has done his readers a great service in painting such a lovely portrait of two lives well-lived and the virtue that animated them in this compelling, instructive, convicting, and joy-filled volume. I’m better for having read it.”
—Trey Dimsdale, executive director, Center of Religion, Culture, & Democracy
“Patrick Garry has written a wonderful book in which he uncovers a secret that his parents knew all along: gratefulness paired with faith is the key to a happy and fulfilling life. The book is filled with touching anecdotes that provide insight into human nature. I will be giving copies to my own children, hoping that they impart its wisdom to their kids.”
—Ronald J. Rychlak, professor of law, University of Mississippi School of Law
“Through the beautifully told story of his own family, Patrick Garry offers a profound and universal lesson. Gratitude, he shows us, is a kind of master virtue that makes the other virtues possible and puts genuine flourishing within our reach.”
—Yuval Levin, author of A Time to Build
“Mike and Elizabeth Garry were icons of Midwestern civic culture and pillars of their community of Fairview, Minnesota. They personified the ethic of neighborliness, the art of friendship, and the pursuit of decency as an ideology. The Garrys’ story is beautifully told by a grateful son, whose moving meditation channels Jon Hassler’s skill at purveying the humanity of small-town Catholic benevolence and brings life to the idea and practice of Midwestern niceness.”
—Jon Lauck, editor in chief, Middle West Review
“Patrick Garry didn’t understand until after his parents died how gratitude set them free to live beautiful and generative lives. Nor did he understand that gratitude is much more than an expected response to something good. But he gets that now and wants readers to grasp it, too. Telling engaging stories about his parents’ lives, Garry teaches readers that lives of perpetual thankfulness can fill the world with joy.”
—Bill Tammeus, journalist and columnist, Flatland
“The Power of Gratitude portrays how the lives of Mike and Liz Garry reflected and exemplified the true, deeper meaning of gratitude. They found in every person they met those positive attributes each one possessed, regardless of their status in life. The eloquent manner in which this book is written clearly illustrates the many instances where Mike and Liz exhibited interest, concern, and respect for each person they encountered, including their love of Fairmont.”
—Lenny Tvedten, executive director, Martin County Historical Society
“We are not grateful enough for creation, not grateful enough to render unto God the gratitude he’s due for having made the world and all its creatures, but also not grateful enough to realize our own joy. In The Power of Gratitude, Patrick Garry tells the story of his parents’ lives as a lesson and a carol. ‘While they lived their lives, gratitude infused them with energy, hope and optimism,’ he observes. And joy was the result: the joy that ought to come for all of us in the morning and fill the days of those around us.”
—Joseph Bottum, author of An Anxious Age
The Power of Gratitude: Charting a Path Toward a Joyous and Faith-Filled Life is a memoir by Patrick M. Garry written as a tribute to his parents, Michael and Elizabeth Garry. The Garrys were highly respected working-class Catholics who did their humble best to put their faith into daily action. Growing up in the Great Depression and living through WWII, the Cold War, and the socially and economically tumultuous years that followed, the Garrys led the ordinary lives of small-town Americans focused on family, faith, work, and community. With a foreword by Father Peter Brandenhoff and dotted with insightful quotations from both parents, Patrick reviews the spiritual attributes his mother’s and father’s lives exemplified and the lessons they provide about the meaning of true gratitude and deep joyfulness. “What I learned throughout my life,” Michael Garry noted, “is that success is not measured by what you have but how happy you are… But remember -- you can’t be happy if you don’t pursue happiness in the right way.”
While The Power of Gratitude by Patrick M. Garry is an utterly inspirational memoir about two people who touched the lives of so many others, it’s also a thought-provoking discussion about what it means to lead successful lives as God intended us to do. While framed within the Garry family's Catholic beliefs, its practical topics of adversity, optimism and energy, perseverance, joy, service, courage, faith, and gratitude as a social model have clear relevance to believers of any faith and non-believers as well. I particularly appreciated the discussion on the value of gratitude for a nation’s strength. “Thanksgiving should not just be a one-day holiday,” Michael advised, “it should be our national anthem.” To this, Patrick added that “Only gratitude could hold a society together, and particularly a diverse society. Ingratitude sentences a society to unending conflict, to a spiraling self-interest.” Considering the state of our country today, these are words to think about.
—Kimberlee J Benart for Readers’ Favorite
- Title: The Power of Gratitude: Charting a Path toward a Joyous and Faith-Filled Life
- Authors: Patrick M. Garry, Peter Brandenhoff
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666765922, 9781666765908, 1666765902, 9781666765915, 1666765910, 1666765929
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666765922
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-04-25T01:07:50Z
Patrick Garry is a law professor at the University of South Dakota and the second of Michael and Elizabeth’s eight children. He has published thirteen nonfiction books and eight novels, which have received more than five dozen book awards, but The Power of Gratitude might be the only book he was really called to write.