Friday, April 9, 2010

Bear Has Her Harmonica Back!

Happy Bear!

Some people might think that bears wouldn't be much interested in learning to play harmonica. Not true! In fact, if you ever find yourself out in the woods, with the sweet smell of forest mulch and flowers floating on a gentle breeze in early spring, and hear the piping of haunting, soulful music ... it's likely coming from a nearby bear's den. Likely from one of Bear's friends.

Lots of bears play harmonica. It's a handy, portable instrument to take on hunting trips. Yet it's capable of playing everything from Country Gospel to deep Worship music. Bear has even taken a shot at learning the Hallelujah Chorus on it.

She started learning it about 6 months ago, but got so excited by how wonderful it all was, that she overdid it and spent too much time playing it -- hours a day -- she was having so much fun. And she hurt her rib. Bad hurt.

You wouldn't think you could get hurt playing harmonica. But you can. And Bear did. In fact, it hurt even to breathe for quite some time.

So, she had to lay it down completely for about 6 weeks, to give her rib time to heal. Which made her one sad bear.

But today Bear is no longer sad. Bear is happy Bear again. YES!

She's been cautiously playing for ten minutes at a time, a few times each day, these past few days, making sure there's no more pain. And so far ... it's a go!

And it's so wonderful to be able to pick it up again and worship the Lord with music, taking breaks from the day's routine or any pressures that might be coming down.

Unfortunately though, this Bear's playing is not yet best described by the words "haunting" or "soulful". Truth be told, if you happened to be out in the forest near Bear's Writing Den on an early spring evening, you might even want to plug your ears, just to be on the safe side.

It turns out that the harmonica is not a super easy instrument to master, to say the least. And Bear still has to put a lot of imagination into the sounds she hears emanating from her own harmonica, to mentally recreate the beauty she's heard from some of the better players.

But maybe, in His Time. Someday ...

Meanwhile, Bear celebrated being off the injured list and back playing again, by posting Harmonica videos of a couple of OUTSTANDING harmonica virtuosos: Buddy Greene, playing the William Tell Overture in Carnegie Hall, and Terry McMillian, playing a super fast gospel harmonica "train" type song -- "This Train is Bound for Glory." And then another video by McMillian, playing "Amazing Grace." The two videos by McMillian are especially moving, because he died shortly thereafter, but these videos remain as evidence of his faith and love of the Lord, expressed so beautifully through his harmonica playing.

(For those who get the Den's posts by feeds or by reading in the Den itself, you'll need to visit the Den's "Recreation Room" to watch the videos. The Daily Bible Quiz is still there -- just moved down below the new videos. For those on Facebook, the harmonica videos are displayed in the "Extended Info" Tab on my profile, and can be played there.)
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Bear's news and free multi-media Christian resources: Bear's Writing Den

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