Thoughts on praise and thankfulness, taken from my contribution to Jane Redmont’s 1999 book When in Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life. This excerpt (pages 188-190) is from the chapter entitled “Daring to Raise the Alleluia Song.”

“Everything I know about praise and joyful prayer goes back to the very beginning of my Christian life,” Fred wrote to me. “There is of course the remarkable atmosphere of a living, thriving, charismatic congregation: a loud crowd, lots of emotion, and people just glad to be in church together in the presence of God. There’s a celebratory atmosphere there that’s really something magnificent when it’s going right. Jubilant music, clapping hands, and the more outgoing members of the group feeling free to dance, wave hands, sing too loud, shout, and just generally express joy physically. Not to be underestimated as aerobic exercise, either,” he joked. “That’s stamped in my consciousness from before I was reflective. It’s the matrix for all further understanding I ever got around to.”

He added: “Praise can take over the entire enterprise of prayer, and invade the rest of life as well. This is a hard thing to talk about because the last thing I can stand still for is Norman Vincent Peale happy-talk about having an attitude of gratitude. But ‘the power of praise’ is a big deal in my upbringing.
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