daily java

Daily Java:

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
      to sing praises to the Most High.
It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning,
      your faithfulness in the evening,
accompanied by the ten-stringed harp
      and the melody of the lyre. (Psalm 92:1-3 NLT)

Sometimes I just like to pick up my guitar and play and sing in praise. Maybe it is not for any particular reason, just because.

And it is always good, no matter what it is that I sing, whether I use the 12 string or the electric.

I am not very good at playing. I came from a denomination that didn’t believe in musical instruments so I never got adept at playing.

I learned to play in 1968. I don’t remember why I started, but it was that period of time in which a lot of guys began to play guitar. For one thing, it was a great way to meet girls (or at least you hoped so).

There was that picture of the kids all sitting around the campfire and someone has a guitar and they all sing. Or the guy sitting and serenading the girl as he sang with his guitar. Or any number of other scenarios, all of which ended with the girls being impressed.

None of that ever happened, though. I dated and married a girl who had no real interest in hearing me play the guitar, I never played it in groups, I sure didn’t play it in church. I would take it places occasionally, but in general, I was not very good and I didn’t play much.

I did play a couple of protest songs in 1968 in college for an English class conducted by a guy who thought himself to be cool. But that was one of my few performances.

In fact, I bought a guitar from a guy in 1974 for $20 and still have it. It was the guitar I had for almost 40 years now. And for 25 of those years, I played it and thought it was good.

It used to be a 12 string but most of the pegs are gone now, so it has, over the years, moved down to a 6 string. I painted it a few years back as a clown guitar, but otherwise, I rarely play it.

In general, it is a crummy guitar, but I cannot bear to let go of it. No one will want it after I die, so it has moved to the point of hanging on my wall as fold art.

I only started playing in 1994 when I left that denomination. My very first special in church was Amazing Grace sang accompanied by that guitar.

Since then I have owned several and given away several. In fact, I have probably given away maybe even ten guitars over the past decade or more. Not sure where I got them, but they seem to come in and then find someone who needs them.

Sometimes I am afraid that I wasted them, as I did recently when I gave one away and almost instantly regretted it. But I couldn’t get it back and I think the young man has never played it.

But I love to play. I think I see my playing days numbered, though, as my hands are giving me a lot of trouble.

But until I do, I will praise him accompanied by my own twelve stringed lyre.