Chasing the Sun

So I have been trying to decide for the past week if I wanted to write about this or not. It's a hard topic, however in light of many current issues across the world and locally, I decided to give it a try. A childhood friend of mine died last weekend in an awful car crash. It was very sad. I missed his funeral by a day since I couldn't get off work. Joe and I were never very close but he was always with my brothers causing trouble around the neighborhood. As I have grew up, I realized death is all a part of living. It goes hand in hand. My father performed part of Joe's funeral last Wednesday. It just happened to be dad's birthday. The irony speaks for itself. Where there is life, there is death. Every single day. 

Sara Bareilles is one of my favorite musicians. I refer to her lyrics often because they often explain emotions that are tough to verbalize. Her most recent album has a song called "Chasing The Sun." Below I posted the lyrics. I encourage you to take time to read them and even listen to the actual song. About halfway through she sings the following, "There's a history through her

Sent to us as a gift from the future, to show us the proof

More than that, it's to dare us to move

And to open our eyes and to learn from the sky

From a cemetery in the center of Queens"

The part that really got me was "it's to dare us to move." Deaths that are sudden like Joe's or the shootings in Kenya or the ones in Washington, they remind us just how fragile life is. Death shows us life stops for nothing. Sometimes we even get angry that life continues on as if nothing happened. If life stopped for us when tragedy happens, we d never get going again. It doesn't make it any easier. By no means, no. It does allow us to move towards healing. Everyone always told me "time heals everything." It bothered me a lot to hear that phrase. A decade later, I would like to correct it to say, "Time dulls the pain." And with that, we ve got to keep moving. Not forgetting, just encouraging each other to press on.  I encourage everyone to know the air we breathe is a constant reminder to keep chasing the sun! 

Philippians 3:14 

"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

                                          Cheers! 

 

   Chasing the Sun by Sara Bareilles 

It's a really old city

Stuck between the dead and the living

So I thought to myself, sitting on a graveyard shelf

As the echo of heartbeats, from the ground below my feet

Filled a cemetery in the center of Queens

I started running the maze of

The names and the dates, some older than others

The skyscrapers, little tombstone brothers

With Manhattan behind her, three million stunning reminders

Built a cemetery in the center of Queens

You said, remember that life is

Not meant to be wasted

We can always be chasing the sun!

So fill up your lungs and just run

But always be chasing the sun!

So how do you do it,

With just words and just music, capture the feeling

That my earth is somebody's ceiling,

Can I deliver in sound, the weight of the ground

Of a cemetery in the center of Queens

There's a history through her

Sent to us as a gift from the future, to show us the proof

More than that, it's to dare us to move

And to open our eyes and to learn from the sky

From a cemetery in the center of Queens

You said, remember that life is

Not meant to be wasted

We can always be chasing the sun!

So fill up your lungs and just run

But always be chasing the sun!

All we can do is try

And live like we're still alive

It's a really old city

Stuck between the dead and the living

So I thought to myself, sitting on a graveyard shelf

And the gift of my heartbeat sounds like a symphony

Played by a cemetery in the center of Queens

You said, remember that life is

Not meant to be wasted

We can always be chasing the sun!

So fill up your lungs and just run

But always be chasing the sun!

All we can do is try

And live like we're still alive

   Lyrics from azlyrics.com