My Sunday Morning Reflection: In the 1970’s, I was in the Army and stationed in a small town in West Germany. My wife and child were 4753 miles away in Kansas City, Missouri. Since it wasn’t considered ‘manly’ to shed tears in front of your roommates, early Sunday mornings, while my comrades slept off another Saturday night, often found me walking the streets of Ettlingen alone. Feeling sorry for myself and pretty much hating the world.
I think that each one of us needs that time where we can block off the problems of the real world and reflect on who we are and where we want to go. Even today, though my life is in a much better place, I get up early on Sunday mornings and head out for a walk in search of inspiration and reaffirmation.
This song always comes to my mind as I hear my footsteps tap the empty sidewalks along silent streets. I remember the loneliness and depression of those days. How easily I could have slipped into the darkness and not returned. How narrow that margin is between who each of us are and the man living under the overpass.
I think about how we’re always complaining that the world is rapidly changing and we wish we could go back to our childhood. On my Sunday morning strolls, the church bells still echo through the crisp October fog, children still run and laugh in the city park, and the sun still manages to poke its way through the haze of the morning. In our busy lives, we just don’t see them as clearly as we did as children. But I see them on my lazy Sunday morning reflections and they make me remember also, the promise that I made to myself on those empty streets so long ago. I swore that once I was reunited with my wife, I would never leave her side again.
Well I woke up Sunday morning With no way to hold my head That didn’t hurt And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t Bad so I had one more for dessert Then I fumbled through my closet For my clothes And found my cleanest dirty shirt And I shaved my face And combed my hair And stumbled down the stairs To meet the day I’d smoked my brain the night before With cigarettes and songs That I’ve been pickin’ But I lit my first and watched a small kid Cussin’ at a can that he was kickin Then I crossed the empty street and Caught the sunday smell Of someone fryin chicken And it took me back to something That I’d lost somehow Somewhere along the way On the sunday morning sidewalk Wishing lord that I was stoned Cause there’s something in a sunday That makes a body feel alone And there’s nothing short of dying Half as lonesome as the sound On the sleeping city sidewalk Sunday morning coming down In the park I saw a daddy With a laughing little girl He was swingin And I stopped beside the Sunday school And listened to the song That they were singing Then I headed back for home And somewhere far away A lonely bell was ringing And it echoed thru the canyon like The disappearing dreams of yesterday On the sunday morning sidewalk Wishing lord that I was stoned Cause therels something in a sunday That makes a body feel alone And there’s nothing short of dying Half as lonesome as the sound On the sleeping city sidewalk Sunday morning coming down
She led the way up the path. I couldn’t keep from staring at her, thinking about all the things I had discovered…the things that no other person has ever known. She had chosen me to share her soul. In my hands she had placed all her trust and innocents and when you go that far, it forms a connection that can never be destroyed. Purely from the virtue of knowing how your life will never again be the same. She turned to me, smiled and dove off the cliff into the water below. I vowed I would always follow her
Dad Joke of the Day: How does Moses make coffee? Hebrews it.
Quote of the Day:“Love and trust must share the same bed.”
Today in History: 1888 – Washington, DC – Built between 1848 and 1884 and dedicated in 1885, the Washington Monument—a marble-faced granite obelisk that honors the first U.S. president, George Washington—opened to the public
Born on This Day: 1948 – Heidelberg, Germany – Clyde Jackson Browne, American Rock and Roll hall of famer, singer-songwriter, poet and musician… Jackson Browne has written and recorded songs such as “These Days“, “The Pretender“, “Running on Empty“, “Lawyers in Love”, “Doctor My Eyes”, “Take It Easy”, “For a Rocker”, and “Somebody’s Baby”. In 2004, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and given an honorary doctorate of music by Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. Soon after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, during March 1979, Browne joined with several musician friends to found the antinuclear organization Musicians United for Safe Energy. He was arrested protesting against the Diablo Canyon Power Plant near San Luis Obispo. Political protest came to the fore in Browne’s music in the 1986 album, Lives in the Balance, an explicit condemnation of U.S. policy in Central America. Flavored with new instrumental textures, it was a huge success with many Browne fans, though not with mainstream audiences. The title track, “Lives in the Balance” was an outcry against U.S.-backed wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
Lyrics:
I’ve been waiting for something to happen For a week or a month or a year With the blood in the ink of the headlines And the sound of the crowd in my ear You might ask what it takes to remember When you know that you’ve seen it before Where a government lies to a people And a country is drifting to war And there’s a shadow on the faces Of the men who send the guns To the wars that are fought in places Where their business interest runs On the radio talk shows and the T.V. You hear one thing again and again How the U.S.A. stands for freedom And we come to the aid of a friend But who are the ones that we call our friends– These governments killing their own? Or the people who finally can’t take any more And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone There are lives in the balance There are people under fire There are children at the cannons And there is blood on the wire There’s a shadow on the faces Of the men who fan the flames Of the wars that are fought in places Where we can’t even say the names They sell us the President the same way They sell us our clothes and our cars They sell us everything from youth to religion The same time they sell us our wars I want to know who the men in the shadows are I want to hear somebody asking them why They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are But they’re never the ones to fight or to die And there are lives in the balance There are people under fire There are children at the cannons And there is blood on the wire
Browne performed frequently at benefit concerts for causes in which he believed, including Farm Aid, Amnesty International (making several appearances on the 1986 A Conspiracy of Hope Tour), post-Somoza revolutionary Nicaragua, and the Christic Institute.
Died on This Day: 1982 – London, England – Anna Freud, psychoanalyst, author, and daughter of Sigmund Freud. Anna Freud’s work emphasized the importance of the ego and its normal “developmental lines” as well as incorporating a distinctive emphasis on collaborative work across a range of analytical and observational contexts. After being forced to leave Vienna in 1938 with the advent of the Nazi regime in Austria, she resumed her psychoanalytic practice and her pioneering work in child psychology in London, establishing the Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic in 1952 (now the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families) as a center for therapy, training and research work.
National… Emergency Nurse’s Day – On the second Wednesday in October we’re given the opportunity to honor our ER nurses around the world. They face impossible tasks with true dedication and commitment. Emergency Nurses Day began in 1989 and is part of Emergency Nurses Week. So here’s to hoping that you never have the occasion to need them, but for me, just knowing they’re there gives me great comfort. Stop Bullying Day – There are many different types of bullying in this world. Whether the bullying is verbal, physical, relational or cyber, they all are ways for the perpetrator to assert their power. The results can be detrimental to the well-being of the victim and in some cases can even lead to death.
Stop Bullying Day – Observed on the second Wednesday of October, is designed to bring students, faculty and parents together to end bullying. For assistance in the efforts to stop bullying, visit the US Department of Human Services at https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/healthy-relationships/bullying/index.html In the US, the National Suicide prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the Suicide Hopeline is 1-800-784-2433
Moldy Cheese Day – Most of us when we open that bottom refrigerator drawer and find a package of cheese with green fuzzy stuff growing on it immediately chuck the entire mess into the garbage, totally disgusted with ourselves for wasting hard earned money. But to a cheese monger (that’s a person who specializes in cheeses, butter, and other dairy products) might take umbrage at offense of moldy cheese. Well, depending on the type of mold, of course. Those red or brown-tinged molds, for example, are offensive. Toss those bacteria-contaminated moldy cheeses in the garbage quickly and move along to the grey, blue, or green colored moldy cheeses in the fridge instead. Like a sommelier pairs the best wines with meals, a cheese monger provides expert advice on artisan cheeses for recipes, banquets, and sources for restaurants. Some cheeses such as Maytag blue, Roquefort, Brie, bleu, camembert, gorgonzola, and Stilton are a few of the moldy reasons cheese lovers celebrate on this day. I don’t know about you guys, but I think I might pass on this one.
On our wedding day, the summer was beginning to fade away but autumn had not taken over the world. The sky opened and dropped a few tears of happiness onto the church rooftop while we said our vows. Although the temperature was mild, our passion still scorched our skin like a burning July sun with every touch. My Army uniformed paled against the brilliance of your winter white wedding dress. You smelled like wild flowers in the spring. We laughed when we promised all our worldly possessions to each other. We did not understand yet how rich we truly were.
