Sunday Morning Coming Round Again
May 11, 2008 by pistolpete
{first published March 25, 2007 in Necessary Therapy}
Yesterday, a song was running through my head - Kris Kristopherson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down”. It took me back 20 years, when my life was a lot like that song. I was 21, working six days a week at a plastics factory, living alone, and staying out too late with people who had about as little ambition as me. I hated Sundays.
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 desert
I slept on a musty mattress on the floor, had a milk crate that doubled as a kitchen table and typing desk and bought my clothes from the Salvation Army.
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
And I shaved my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.
Each Saturday night I traveled about 20 miles to the nearest college town where I could meet up with some friends, go to a bar and listen to bands (mostly upper middle class white kids) screaming about how awful life is. Then I would go alone to hear the Blues or lonesome, low-down Country while lighting one cigarette off another.
I’d smoked my brain the night before
With cigarettes and songs that I’ve been pickin
My mouth was like an empty ashtray I’d been lickin’
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Cussin at a can that he was kicking.
Sunday again. Sunday, when I would watch the world go by and sometimes wonder why I wasn’t in it.
Then I crossed the empty street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken
And it took me back to something
That I’d lost somehow somewhere along the way.
Life wasn’t always this way. Especially not Sundays. In high school, I had great friends and was part of a thriving youth group with a dynamic leader who shared with me the love of Christ. I came to believe and it carried me through rough times. But I didn’t hang on.
Faith can be fickle, at least the faith I had then.
On the Sunday morning sidewalks
Wishing Lord, that I was stoned
Cause there’s something in a Sunday
Makes a body feel alone
And there’s nothin short of dyin
Half as lonesome as the sound
On the sleepin city sidewalk
Sunday morning coming down.
Sunday morning, clothed in a Salvation Army topcoat, head covered by a Jim Beam hat (with maybe even a fifth in my pocket), I went to the park, and just like the song says.
In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl who he was swingin
I smiled. Life can be good. Maybe not my life. Maybe not yet. But maybe it could be. There’s always hope. Always. I started looking for the faith I thought I’d lost.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the song what they were singin
Then I headed back for home
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin
And it echoed through the canyons
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.
I may have headed home that day. But, not long after that, I was drawn into a country church (with a bell no less). I still smelled of smoke and wore that Salvation Army topcoat (though I left behind my Jim Beam hat and my pockets carried only my offering). Those simple, faithful, wonderful Christians welcomed me home.
I don’t listen to Kris Kristopherson much anymore. But I still have faith. I go to church every Sunday (in fact, get paid to do it). And each week I pray someone out there in the world might let go of the loneliness of their days going down and look forward to Sunday morning coming ’round.
