Make more music

The algorithm sent me the other day to an August 2022 post where I attempted to choose 25 albums I would take if I was exiled to a desert island and could only bring two dozen plus one.

It was an impossible task. I reached the requisite number and then realized I’d forgotten to include anything by “The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Rolling Stones, Kinks, The Who, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, John Kongos, Simon and Garfunkel, Rodney Crowell, Van Morrison, Tommy James, The Monkees, Jason Mraz, oh dear oh dear oh dear …”

What really grabbed my attention was the closing observation:

“So much music to love, so little time, and humans keep making more music every day. How do we find the time and energy to hate each other? More important, why?”

I had a similar epiphany when I heard the Monkees theme song with new ears one day: “We’re too busy singing to put anybody down.”

If you’re having trouble loving your neighbor and you’re tempted to voice that opinion, try listening to some music or, even better, making some music. It’s almost impossible to stay angry or hateful when you’re making a joyful noise.

If only the unhappy humans who purport to be our leaders would spend more time with music. They certainly would lead us to a better place than they are now.

Nine years down the road

Facebook Memories reminded me that my time as editor of the Door County Advocate came to an end nine years ago Oct. 25. It was a sunny Tuesday morning, and rumors of layoffs were in the air, so as I drove across Sturgeon Bay’s iconic steel bridge, I contemplated whether this would be my last trip across the water as an employee of the Evil Empire. And indeed it was.

Over the next nine years, I started a local news website and ran it for four years while also working two-thirds time for another community newspaper. I wrote 11 books and published a half-dozen or so more. I started my “streak” of daily blogging that has continued for more than five years.

I lost the love of my life — marrying her after being engaged for 19 years and reading to her as she passed — said goodbye to Willow The Best Dog There Is™ — and found a church home that renewed my life and introduced me to a new love.

Oct. 25, 2016, is definitely one of those “first day of the rest of your life” moments. As the song says, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

The fact that I needed to be reminded of the anniversary is evidence that a great deal of healing has taken place.

Day Seven

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
Genesis 2: 2-3

God set the example — six days of intense creative work, then a day of rest. We are, after all, made in his image, and so we are built after his example.

We are all creators, built in his image. Maybe you create roads or ditches, maybe you create legal arguments in support of your clients, maybe you create clean restrooms, but we all are creative souls. It’s in our nature to create.

On each seventh day, however, we are designed to rest from all the work of creating that we have done. We’re not all on the same schedule — pastors and professional football players work on Sundays — but (theoretically at least) we’re all on a seven-day cycle.

The seventh day is also a holy day. Somewhere along the lines we slurred the words and “holy day,” a day of rest and worship, became “holiday,” a day of rest and maybe we should go to church sometimes.

Day Seven is very much about honoring the Creator of the Universe, though — it’s even one of the Ten Commandments, right up there in importance with “Thou shall not kill” and “Thou shall not steal”: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”

So, take some time today to thank and praise God from whom all blessing flow. And rest! It’s all good for your health.