This song was also not used as the basis for a Psalm. The divorce had been finalized since the day Melanie graduated from High School (at least I was able to keep the marriage together that long). There are definitely bumps in life’s road. Two day’s travel from far away, probably means I was just back from one of the 50+ trips to China. Reflecting on all of these trips, I do not think I shared much with my family about what happened on these trips. Never have been very good about communicating. I’ve written about some of the most memorable experiences in “Stand Back Up.” I wrote 2 songs about trips to China (see Song 082 and Song 111). It would be a good idea to take the time to write down my memories of what happened there, before I forget more than I already have.
This exercise in digitizing the songs helps. It is fun for me to see how I mix numbers and words (2 days, 3 years, 4 decades, 50 years). It also reminds me some of my responsibility for the divorce was I traveled a lot, too much, when I worked for Landmark. I didn’t realize what was happening at home when I wasn’t there. I experienced the disharmony mentioned in verse 3, and since I grew up with much worse disharmony, must have thought the chaos and the pain and the anger was normal. Verse 2 mentions I asked Marti to come back, and she was emphatic the answer would always be no on that Christmas. Thinking about the 4 decades from Christmas 1998, I certainly have enough projects to keep me busy until age 88 and beyond. It has almost been 2 decades since I wrote this song, and the pain often comes up unexpectedly. Especially when I make a poor choice, or when I do not agree with choices some of our children have and continue to make. So, I keep busy, to keep my mind off of my failures, and my parent’s failures, and my children’s failures. Oh well! At least all of our grandchildren are perfect, and they do not make any poor choices.
The joy of positive choices was shown this summer (2017) when several of us went to Palisades Reservoir in Idaho to view the first full solar eclipse in 99 years. The 30 bulbs on the tree are from a “Tiny Planet” display of a 3-D video my son Roice took during the eclipse. The numbered sequence starts in the upper left, and goes left-to-right-to-left-to-right-to-left-to-right-to-left from the top of the tree to the bottom. The regular video of the eclipse experience is on-line at this link, and the tiny planet video is on-line at this link.
A goal is for this site to be interactive, for others to record their versions of the Psalms, or provide images or videos which explain a Psalm better. E-mail images, audio, or video to submit@psalmscountdown.net. By making a submission you agree to release copyright and to allow W3D to publish your submission, acknowledging posting of your submission is entirely up to W3D.