“Morning Has Broken, Like the First Morning…”
For many of us music and, in particular, certain songs mark moments in our lives, both happy and sad. When reheard many years later, the song evokes memories and awakens imbedded emotions. One of “my songs” is the hymn “Morning Has Broken”. In 1930, Percy Dearmer, editor of Songs of Praise (published in 1931), approached and asked English poet and children’s author, Eleanor Farjeon, ”to make a poem to fit the lovely Gaelic tune, Bunessan.“ We can all thank Eleanor that she rose to the occasion and wrote the lyrics for ”Morning has Broken”. Pop and folk singer, Cat Stevens, included an acoustic version on his 1971 album Teaser and the Firecat. The familiar piano arrangement on Stevens’ recording was performed by Rick Wakeman, a classically trained keyboardist with the British progressive rock band Yes.
Morning has become my theme song for my six-week trip to UK, India, Nagaland, and Sweden which was just completed on November 10, 2009. I say completed but in one sense it will never be really completed or ended. I am back here in New York once again safe in my husband’s strong, loving arms but part of me has been left in the places that I visited and in the hearts of those I lived with during the six weeks.
On the sunny morning of October 28th three of us, Sarah Jane, Tiala and I, were riding with Imkong through the streets of Dimapur, the commercial capital of Nagaland, India. Sarah Jane and I had departed from JFK Airport on October 1st. This day in Dimapur was five air flights and twenty-seven days later. I had travelled twelve thousand miles to see my friend, Tiala, who I’ve known for almost twenty years. Delight at this achievement filled my soul! Imkong is Tiala’s younger brother who had spent the early seventies studying in Birmingham, England, living the counter-culture life, and listening to Cat Stevens. The four of us were now listening to Cat Stevens, chiming in with our voices each time the first verse looped, completely united in the moment, and listening to Imkong as he related his personal history. I love hearing people’s stories and, believe me, I have notes on hundreds of them!
As Stevens’ with-lyrics version of Morning was streaming through the Pioneer MP3 player in Imkong’s 2009 Hyundai Elantra my mind went back to where I was in 1970 and 1971 and 1972…. then I fast-forwarded to September 17, 2005 to the wedding day of our oldest son, Tim, to his lovely bride, Kim. To say that the year 2005 was a tuff year for me is to understate the severity of my year-long personal struggle. Suffice it to say that I wasn’t sure that I was going to MAKE IT to my son’s wedding. For eleven excruciating months I had suffered with severe depression and exhaustion caused by menopausal estrogen depletion. Nevertheless, with the help of my friends and my husband, my necessary wedding preparations were pulled together. On a gloriously sunny Friday afternoon, September 16th, with every fiber of my psyche resisting, I inched my way into the passenger’s seat of our Chevy Blazer for the drive up to the Catskill Mountains Full Moon Resort located in Oliverea, NY. This would be my first destination wedding weekend.
During a traditional American wedding event, every mother looks forward to “her” moment on the dance floor with her son and the song of choice to express her memories and emotions at this dramatic milestone in both of their lives. Much care and effort is usually taken to select the right song. My outlook was no different and although I did not have the energy nor inspiration to choose my song, my husband, James, soundscaped ITunes and made suggestions. We chose “Morning Has Broken” as performed by Diana Krall & Art Garfunkel and featured on The Chieftains 2002 recording, The Wide World Over (A 40 Year Celebration). Amazing grace met me when Tim and I stepped into the spotlight on the parquet dance floor and for the duration of the song I felt good. Weeks later I recovered from my depression and the malaise of my soul and body that had threatened to derail my living.
Back to that day in Dimapur….if someone had told me on September 17, 2005 that four years later I would be riding through the busy streets of Dimapur, Nagaland, on a brilliantly sun-filled morning with my dear friend, Tiala, my response would have been, “Really?” A far-away stare in my eyes and a profound weakness in my voice would have defined my lipid utterance. Right now tears are flowing from my eyes as I write this blog article. Music evokes past memories and awakens imbedded emotions. My tears today are tears of joy and triumph. Read to the final words of Morning – “Praise with elation, praise every morning; God’s recreation of the new day.” If you can, take a few moments to listen to one of the versions of “Morning Has Broken”. You will be enriched!
Here’s a picture of Imkong, Tiala, and myself studying a table’s “Lazy Susan” in one of Dimapur’s shops and also two shots of Nagaland’s city street scenes. Sarah Jane is behind her Nikon Coolpix camera. Hope you see these Imkong!
Sarah
Thanks For This Weblog, was added to my bookmarks.what do you do to have so a lot of folks commenting on your weblog? I never get additional than one or two comments per post…
Why there are so many comments is a mystery to me ~ perhaps blog readers pass my blog on to other blog readers, I do not know ~ I do appreciate the follows this is true ~ please read more of my blog articles at http://www.Mbele.org
Nice website and I is going to be coming back again so keep up the very good work! When it comes down to it I believe Alec Baldwin said it most effective in the Glenn-Garry movie. A.I.D.A attention, interest, decision and action. I’ll spare you guys the full speech in which he cusses everybody out.
You made me laugh! ~ I loved your comment ~ good advice! Thanks for “sparing me the full speech” ~ Sarah
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your opinion.
Thanks for the informative post. It helped me a lot. May the Force be with you.
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Pretty insightful post. Never thought that it was this simple after all. I had spent a good deal of my time looking for someone to explain this subject clearly and you’re the only one that ever did that. Kudos to you! Keep it up
Nice words ~ appreciate ~ Sarah
find more writing on http://www.Mbele.org ~ thanks!
His grace be with you too!
How did you search on this topic?
Can I url as much as this, through my own web page? I’m likely to collect as many sources of facts as i am able.
That you could get through this type of struggle is awesome.
Do you have a “top posters” page to reward your most effective website comments?
We are tracking comments ~ “Morning Has Broken,…” has by far the most responses. ~ Thanks, Sarah
Hello! interesting site!
These are very nice! Very inspirational for making sure every part of a site or blog is well designed.
How about…Ah… I dont’ remember what I want to say…
Good reading! I find myself coming to your blog more and more often to the point where my visits are almost daily now!
How did you find us?
You challenged me to try something new, and you have my thanks with a link from my place : )
Thats some great fundamentals there, already know some of that, but you can always learn more. I doubt a “kid” could put together such information as dolphin278 suggested. Maybe he’s just attempting to be “controversial? lol
Hey, I just stumbled accross this post from the search and I must say it is very informative indeed, really deserves to ranked a lot higher lol
a lot better than the sites I had to go through to find this site!
Btw, I wanted to ask what blog platform are you using? I’m pretty new to blogging, and I wanted to start my own blog really soon.
Regards,
We are using WordPress and please contact our web designer, Christine at http://www.LilypodMedia.com ~ thanks, Sarah
whatever the reason as long as more readers come along…
thanks to yu too!
I stumbled onto your blog and read a few post. I like your style of writing.
I am launching a website soon, and your information will be very useful for me.. Thanks for all your help.
It’s good to see this information in your post, i was looking the same but there was not any proper resource, thanx now i have the link which i was looking for my research. . . . . .
Hey, great blog, but I don’t understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me please?
thanks for the post. I am very happy to read this post. . . . .
Hi! Scroll down to the bottom of the blog page and you will see RSS Feed option ~ let me know if you have difficulty ~ thanks for your follow!
Howdy ! Do you maintain several sort of gift box where I could provide monetary gift in PayPal?
Thanks for your interest ~ Donations to our projects may be sent to our USA address or through PayPal on our organization’s web site which is: http://www.H4Cinternational.org
great information. Might be this specific under creative commons usage?
Hey, great blog, but I don’t understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me please?
Guys, Great article and very very interesting blog. That’s one thing I’m really looking forward. Looking forward to reading more from you next week.
Thanks for an honest and truthful post, the like of which is surprisingly rare and all the more valuable for it. Regards, John.
sharing my struggles is not always easy ~ however, I am glad I did in this blog article ~ must have struck a chord judging from all the comments ~ thanks! Sarah
appreciate your follow!
Click on “COMMENTS” and scroll down to the bottom of the web page and you will see “RSS FEED” ~ sign up right there ~ thanks!
Cool post! How much stuff did you have to look up in order to write this one? I can tell you put some work in.
This is my first time i visit here. I found so many entertaining stuff in your blog, especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the leisure here! Keep up the excellent work.
“Morning Has Broken…” has apparently struck a chord in many hearts ~ I am gratified! Sarah
It took some time to research this information but I enjoyed learning the background of this song that has come to mean so much to me ~ in fact, I hope to dance to it with my second son at his upcoming wedding.
Exactly where (how far) could it be, i’d prefer that many more readers find out about this posting, thank you.
Your feeds are fed into other blogger’s RSS feeders, making it syndicated or putting in another way, people out there will subscribe to them and receive online copies of your text.