Growing in Gratitude & Generosity

Or, how a simple thank you, vinyl records, memoirs, and jewelry are everyday stardust

Sep 21, 2024

For all of you fortunate to wake up to a safe and sound Saturday, I hope you will join me in a profession of gratitude.

I've been pondering gratitude as a virtue and concept for many decades. Is it more than an acknowledgment or feeling? Once felt anew, is it meant to lead to personal life-giving choices that enable others to also experience gratitude?

We don't need the dictionary here. Hopefully, we've all experienced moments of gratitude, even as a daily posture or practice. It can happen anywhere at any time. In musical terms, the range of dynamics for gratitude can be expressed as ppp (pianississimo) or fff (fortississimo). It is an intimate thank you—a quiet prayer and a party, even a roaring, cosmological shoutout, isn't it?

Gratitude is an active virtue. There is often an ah-ha moment or a welling up inside. To experience gratitude is often to become a person for which something must come out. It could be a touch on a shoulder after having received grace from a friend. Most often, it involves speaking, singing, and shouting for joy.

I find Jessica Hooten Wilson's short list of gratitude's characteristics enormously helpful. Gratitude is:

A virtue that's not dependent on circumstances

Gratitude is more about imagination, habits, and practices than circumstances.

An antidote to destructive emotions

Gratitude is the opposite of regret and nostalgia, and can help people avoid hateful feelings.

A virtue that can lead to health benefits

Gratitude can lead to increased dopamine and serotonin production, reduced stress hormones, and cognitive restructuring.

A virtue that can help maintain social relationships

Gratitude can help people increase closeness and maintain social relationships.

A virtue that involves responding in thanks

Gratitude involves responding in thanks to people who are good to us, and showing charity and gratitude through gifts.[1]

To the latter, a definition of charity must include more than gifting someone money or otherwise. A too-little-used definition of charity is leniency in judging—suspending the temptation to judge others. This one is just as important in the Great Economy.

And so, to answer my earlier question, gratitude is best experienced (for all) when it leads to something. This is why it has been described as a parent, gateway, or adjacent virtue leading to what the Christian book of Galatians 5:22-23 refers to as "fruits of the spirit." I like all of these as a way of being in the world (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). But as of late, with gratitude, I keep coming back to a focus on generosity.

How can my specific or general gratitude lead to specific, personal acts of generosity? As with the word charity, it's natural that my first thoughts often equate generosity with giving money. I have to stop myself—not so fast, happy giver! What else can I imagine being generous with? Here are three that I'm convinced I need to pursue and do better:

Be generous with my time and attention. Especially the latter. I want to grow in staying connected to people I'm speaking with and authentically give them my undivided attention.
Be generous with praise and credit. This means many things to me, but at least these two:

One is cultivating the practice of thanking and praising others for any number of reasons often. This costs me nothing. It is a ritual of rightness that fulfills the human desire to be seen and known, even when I might be tempted to think a word of gratitude to be insignificant or simply good manners. No one knows what fruit a single encouragement on any given day may have in the life of a loved one, friend, or stranger.

Two, moving from my music business background of credit accrual to credit abatement or sharing. Specifically, this means singling others out for their contributions to my life—work and otherwise. It is like the old saying: Giving credit where credit is due. However, what I'm pursuing here goes beyond this to give credit where the conventions of culture say little credit is due. Sharing with others their roles without assigning them a percentage of importance, giving them full credit, and offering thanks (even long overdue compensation). This is active neighbor love and neighborhood renewal.

Finally, I seek to responsibly give away my accrued influence or imprimatur. If my circle of influence includes three people or three thousand, it does not matter. What does matter is that I've been gifted with lifelong friendships and security in several forms, including a loving family, expertise in my vocations, imparted authority and leadership, and music and words that travel the globe. For this, I am exceedingly grateful.

So, as I learned from my friend Bob Briner many years ago, "How can I serve you?" might, for me, roll off the tongue easily.

The caveat is that I am a small, wounded, and often physically unwell man with limited ability. My challenge is to ensure that my imagination for "giving it away" communicates with my body. The former likes to think it is unlimited, while the latter now knows it isn't.

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Of the many things I have to be grateful for is the outpouring of encouragement (even good tears for some of you) for my recording EVERY KIND OF UH-OH. I do read all your comments. Thank you. You are especially liking “Get Yourself Some.”

To enjoy the new record click the button below. It will take you to all the popular streaming sites, to Amazon and iTunes to purchase MP3s, and to Dolby/Atmos mixes at Apple. Note: Lyrics are now posted HERE.

Streaming & MP3 Purchases

I want to remind you of UTR Media's good work providing a CD and vinyl option for EVERY KIND OF UH-OH. Click on the graphic to visit their digital storefront. I wish everyone could own the vinyl, even if you never listen to it! Can I say it's just fun to hold and read the lyrics and credits? I know, I'm an old man. But maybe this sort of thing still matters to you, too.

I've also received a whole stack of lovely endorsements from generous people for my upcoming memoir, Roots & Rhythm, to be published by Eerdmans on February 4th, 2025, including these:

“A historic trailblazer who truly cared and created for our culture, Charlie Peacock has encouraged me to persevere and seek the highest realms of my art, and still (somehow) dare to love Jesus and his Broken body—the church. I am grateful for Roots & Rhythm to reintroduce his work to the next generation, and to the music communities at large.”

—Makoto Fujimura, artist and author of Art+Faith: A Theology of Making

“Lyrically written and richly textured, Roots and Rhythm is the best sort of memoir: captivating, entertaining, and subtly coaxing readers to live their own lives more wholeheartedly.”

—Kristin Kobes Du Mez, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus and John Wayne

“The truest masters always teach over the shoulder and through the heart, inviting those who want to learn to come and see, listening carefully to the storied insight of their years. In his new memoir, Charlie Peacock— musician extraordinaire —invites the wide world into his life, hearing about the music and musicians of the modern world as reflects on the vocation that makes sense of who he is, of why he is, and of what he has done. With rare understanding of the nexus of imagination and the marketplace, Roots and Rhythms brings philosophical and theological insight into his unique pilgrimage as an artist of unparalleled creativity twined together with surprising generosity, nurturing the hearts and minds of a generation of singers and songwriters who long to learn from the master.”

—Steven Garber, Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common the Good, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, and author of The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work.

All of which I can give an, "Aw, shucks guys" and a sincere, grateful, thank you. Talk of the book reminds me to let you know that the memoir is almost everywhere now and available for preorder/presales at a guaranteed price. In the future, I will provide you with a list of retail options, including my indie bookstore friends like Parnassus and Hearts & Minds. For now, you can click the book graphic to see the Goliath option.

Before I exit, I'd like to give arting props to my talented sister, Terri. Harkening back to when we were teenagers, she opened an Etsy store with lovely, handmade jewelry reminiscent of that artful time so many years ago and current in color and style—created from natural and recycled material. Enjoy here at REWIREBoutique. 20% off all orders until 9/30/24

There you go. Peace and love to all.

[1] Wilson, Jessica Hooten. Church Life Journal: A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, July 27, 2020, https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/gratitude-as-a-virtue/.