“Everything that is, is freely given by the God of love. All is grace. Light and water, shelter and food, work and free time, children, parents and grandparents, birth and death–it is all given to us. Why? So that we can say gracias, thanks: thanks to God, thanks to each other, thanks to all and everyone.”
Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) in Gracias! (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983) 187.