It’s all in the making

They say it will feel like November this weekend, if November is a windy chill. I could hear the bay rolling yesterday, here on the other side of the trees, and the wind chimes played a cacophonous melody.

My original subtitle for this blog was “Fragments of thought and bursts of creativity,” and all these years later I am still pulling fragments and bursts out of my mind and sending them out into the world.

Why do creators create? What makes us run to our parents, present them with our art, and cry, “I made this!”

The answer is as simple as “we are made in the Creator’s image.” Every sunrise, every burst of fall color, every impossibly blue sky, is the Lord showing us beauty and crying, “I made this!” As the psalmist said, the heavens declare the glory of God.

And so we paint, we manipulate clay, we garden and landscape, we arrange words and music in as pleasing a manner as we can, all because we are made in the image of the Creator and, as such, in our own small ways, we create.

Old Dog, New Tricks

Regular readers know I have been preparing a new album of my original songs under the title New Dog, Old Tricks. This week I uploaded the files to CD Baby, the most popular distributor of independent music. If all goes well, you’ll be able to pre-order the album starting Nov. 15, and on Dec. 2 the music will become available at places like Spotify and Apple Music and the like.

I’ve been making albums as long as I’ve been poking at a guitar; by my count, this is my 21st but only the second I’ve sent out into the world this way.

While the folks at CD Baby are getting things organized, you can preview the album at SoundCloud. Here is what I wrote there:

I wanted this album to sound like me playing a guitar in the living room to a friend, or perhaps while sitting on the bed with my loved one. I can hear every off-note sung and every hiccup on the guitar, but this is the choice that I made, and hopefully the messages come through despite the limitations of the messenger.

As I send these tunes out into the world, I am a 72-year-old widower who has fallen in love again with a lovely widow — hence “Better Late Than Never,” the opening track. My instrument of choice on most of these songs is the 12-string guitar I purchased 50 summers ago with the proceeds from my first job as an alleged adult.

These are all recent compositions with two exceptions. I wrote “Let’s Go Steady” in 1974 intending it as a parody of 1950s doo-wop songs but found as years went by that it stands the test of time as a simple love song. And “Don’t You Worry” is a gift that God gave me in 1986.

My original plan was to multi-track these songs with harmonies and other instrumentation, and I may still do that someday. In the end, with the exception with the finale, “I’m Not Done,” I decided on this more intimate setting.

And so, with love, here is “New Dog, Old Tricks.”

Warren Bluhm · New Dog, Old Tricks

Renewal and revival

Of course posting my thoughts about this week’s political events started a fight. That seems to be the point of politics — fighting.

I surrender. No one will change their mind based on anything I say or write anyway. I’m going to do what I’ve said I wanted to do over and over again: I’m going to turn off the news. It’s all lies and jests anyway, and a person hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Yes, I just quoted a folk song; there’s more truth in a bit of music than in the daily wrestling match among fighters who purport to run our lives.

I’m not interested in fighting. Never have been. Violence is for cowards.

Every so often I break my vow to stay away from politics and write about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I always regret the lapse. My words are misunderstood, assumptions are made about things I didn’t say, and it’s all just sad. Today I renew my vow.

Dark forces are afoot, and they like it when we are angry with each other and find reasons to hate. No more. There is too much beauty in this world to dwell in darkness.

I can’t promise never to breach the subject again. After all, I am a loathsome sinner like everyone else.

But I will try to remember that here, I aim to bring encouraging words to a discouraging world. The battle is a daily one, and actually, I fall into the trap when I think of it as a battle.

It’s a surrender. When one surrenders to the Holy Spirit, the result is the fruits of the Spirit, which I listed above.

Let’s get on with seeking love, joy, peace, and the rest. It’s healthier all around.