November 1, 2018 I began learning to play the guitar. It was a Takamine-G Series steel string acoustic guitar abandoned from my dreams many years ago that I placed in he corner of my study as a decorative item.

That morning for no particular reason I picked it up, blew the dust off, twanged a few strings and turned it over in my hands, examining it. Why not?

I found this great guy on YouTube–Andy Crawley or Andy Guitar as he calls himself–who promised to teach the guitar for 10-minutes a day in 10-days. 

I love this guy. He is very practical in his step-by-step course and because he is on the Internet you can stop the action, go-back, review and repeat at your leisure. 

Not much blather from this guy. Just a see it, practice it and do it approach. Because you can go at your own pace his lessons are great for slow learners like me. And he has so many useful posts you can practice as much as time and commitment allow.

I got callouses so my fingers no longer hurt, learned the four cards–G, C, D and E that allow me to play almost all the popular songs ever written, struggled with a few strumming techniques and practiced the major scales. Using the Carnegie Hall technique–practice, practice practice–I progressed slowly, very slowly, up the steep and arduous learning curve. 

I began working on Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, a simple cord progression that became a wedding music fad soon after Robert Redford released the 1980 film Ordinary People.

It might be a simple cord progression for some but for a Texan who has used his gnarled hands exclusively for branding cattle it became a challenge worthy of a Norman Rockwell earnest-boy-tries- desperately-to-get-it-right painting.

Let’s put it this way: you have to use the thumb and first three fingers of your right hand to pluck the strings and the fingers of your left hand to form the notes and cords. That’s something they don’t teach at the W-Bar-W Ranch. 

The music of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major is a different story. It soars and seems to me to be a widow into the eternal. The melody flows over the heartbeat baseline with an unbearable sweetness and yearning. I never tire of hearing it.

And I never tired of practicing it. Over and over I stumbled, halted, faltered, paused, started again. Left it. Came back. Started again. Faltered again.

And finally I got it. As I was finishing the first two progressions, I burst into tears. I couldn’t believe that I was playing this haunting piece that had been written over 400 years ago.

Please don’t get me wrong. My playing would rank below a 5-year old at first recital, but somehow in the briefest of encounters I was caught up in the whirlwind of creative people: the poets, musicians, artists and architects that enrich our lives; and with you and the world you and I create–the kindness and goodness that radiates from us and the bonds we create with each other. 

Think then of our God, the creator of the all the vastness and all the minuscule that surrounds us. The creator of the perfect child who came to us to bless and give meaning to our lives, think upon that God.

Does God who is all around us, who is above us and below us and in us and through us, does God burst into metaphorical tears, joyful tears when he knows those he creates create fruitful work that bless the lives of others?