The Deeper Story: Gratitude
My second solo album, For the Beauty of the Earth, is the result of two years of soul-searching and personal growth, and it’s all about GRATITUDE.
A few years back, I heard a piece for trombone and piano that David Rodgers had written for one of my Vanderbilt students. I was so enamored with the piece that I asked David to expand the piece into a large-scale three movement work, and his piece Tresin Terra (a wordplay on the Latin phrase meaning “three for Earth”) was the result. David had been inspired by nature as he composed the catchy and inspiring piece, and he called the 3rd movement “For the Beauty of the Earth”. As I was preparing to premiere Tresin Terra with David at the 2017 ITF in Redlands, I pulled out our family’s old hymnal, flipped to hymn number 44, and began to read…
For the beauty of the Earth, for the glory of the skies
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies
Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise
As I read through the entire hymn, I was deeply moved and inspired with feelings of joy and thankfulness, as each verse expressed sincere gratitude for the gifts and blessings of life:
For Nature. For the Sun, Moon, and Stars. For trees, and flowers, and hills. For friends and family. For art that delights our hearts and minds. For music itself. Gratitude.
I began to reflect on the nature of gratitude. What kinds of things cause me to be grateful? More importantly… What does gratitude produce in me? Is gratitude the result of something, or the cause of something? Is it something that happens to you, or something you have to cultivate from within? And then one day, when I was in a hard season of life, learning some difficult truths and stumbling through some tough lessons, a dear friend said to me,
“It’s not the happy who are grateful. It’s the grateful who are happy.”
That was one of the most important lessons I’ve ever tried to learn, and I’m still learning it every day. Gratitude is not something I feel in the absence of struggle, or only in response to wonderful pleasant things. It is something I must work on, as a discipline, as a state of mind. I have to plow the ground of my heart and plant seeds of intentional gratitude every single day, until I learn, through struggle and failure, how to view the world through that lens. How to count my blessings, and see the good that is always, always there if I’m brave and disciplined enough to see it.
An “attitude of gratitude” for all its misuse and triteness, has been the key to so much growth for me in recent years. It has actually changed the way I see the world and interpret my life experiences, including the unpleasant ones. That has been the most surprising thing of all, actually. That in my better moments,
The tree in Franklin TN that inspired the cover art.
I can view things like heartbreak, disappointment, and failure through the lens of gratitude.
Getting your heart broken is excruciating, but it can also help you appreciate those who love you and are there for you. Disappointment feels like a punch to the gut, but I really appreciate how much sweeter the triumphs feel as a result. Failure can put me in a bad mental space quicker than just about anything, but I am grateful for the lessons I learn each time I stumble. It’s in that spirit that I came up with the “theme” of this album.
This collection of music was thoughtfully curated with the hope that it might inspire us all to pursue gratitude for all that life has to offer.
For the pleasant things that cause our hearts to burst with beauty and joy, and the unpleasant things that refine us and strengthen us and help us truly appreciate the good we have. For the birds and streams and friends and laughter, but also for hard days and tough lessons and “unprecedented times”. I sincerely hope that this album, recorded and produced in the middle of a global pandemic, will increase beauty and joy in the lives of all who hear it, and that it will serve as a small reminder to keep picking ourselves up, holding on to each other, and “hugging the cactus” together.
