Gratitude Monday: Grateful praise

My seasonal music today is technically—well, it’s kind of all over the place. The Christmas carol version is sung during Epiphany, but it’s also the music for a hymn sung for US Thanksgiving. And since today I’m grateful for being able to spend Thanksgiving this year with friends (with dinner and word games), I’m playing this incarnation. Ish.

By “-ish” I mean that it’s extremely hard to find a “clean” version of “For the Beauty of the Earth”, one that’s not that John Rutter…thing. No, I want Dix, number 92 in the Methodist hymnal, preferably with a badass Methodist choir giving it their all on such lyrics as:

For the beauty of the earth,

For the beauty 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

Sadly, YouTube has not been my friend in my search for a decent recording of this. Really.

However, I did come across this very interesting variant: “Dance Africana on Dix”, by Jeffrey Honoré. It’s meant for handbells, with optional percussion.

All I can find on this are performances at various churches, so the quality isn’t spectacular, but have a listen:

To me, it capture the sense of giving grateful praise for the beauties around us, by incorporating some of the sounds of nature—I hear rain, birds, insects. And I believe I hear thanksgiving joy.

So why not for Advent?