That's What I Love About Sunday
iTunes--I'm a big fan. I first heard about it last year and I tried to get in and look around, but it said, "iTunes does not operate in your area." But, just a few weeks ago I gave it a shot again on a whim and I got through. I know I'm a missionary and I'm living on support and I know that 99 cents is about 1,700 Uganda shillings and that's just under half a day's wage for an average laborer in Uganda, so I'm not going crazy downloading every song I want to hear once. But my discreet downloading has allowed a handful of choice numbers, mostly strangely sentimental, from Snoop Dogg to Ronnie Milsap. The most recent, the one I'm playing on repeat right now, is "That's What I Love About Sunday."
I first heard the song one Sunday afternoon back in February driving through Valdosta. I'd just finished speaking at the annual oyster roast at Christ Church, Savannah and was on my way to Dallas via New Orleans.
"have some chicken and some baked beans"
I wasn't close to hungry, I wasn't home sick, I'd just spent a week with family, I was looking ahead at six more American weeks of burgers and fries and burritos and driving in the right lane, but my eyes were wetter than normal. I've got no problem with being made a sucker in general, but I do have a problem with being made a sucker by popular radio--country or not.
"35 cents off a ground round, baby cut that coupon out"
But I listened to the whole song and liked it. My cd player wasn't cooperating with the tape deck, so I was stuck with the radio for most of my driving around the country. As I crossed that corner of Georgia over to I-10 and then along toward New Orleans, I caught mostly country stations. It was Sunday. I didn't think of trying to count how many times I got "That's What I Love About Sunday."
"new believers getting baptized"
After that one big day, I did a lot more driving and lot more radio searching (spent a couple hours in Muskogee, Oklahoma driving around looking for Wal-Mart where I hoped to find a Muskogee t-shirt--they were all out--ate sweet-and-sour chicken at the Mall--never once heard Merle Haggard), and I don't remember the sun going down on one day of driving that didn't get me at least one full listen to "That's What I Love About Sunday."
"sweet Miss Betty likes to sing off key in the pew behind me"
It was a big deal, it was a big song. But I don't think I said anything about it to anyone. It was me and my heart and my memories and my country in the car on the highway and it always stayed on the highway. Once I listened all the way through Jeff Foxworthy doing the weekly countdown, knowing it would have to be coming up. It came up and I listened, but I missed the singer's name.
"every verse of Amazing Grace"
Craig Morgan
It's Sunday in Uganda and all over the world. "That's What I Love About Sunday" is quickly climbing the chart of my iTunes Top 25 Most Played. I know there are scores of critics who'll be justified in saying, "Yeah, but what about all the terrible things going on in the world on Sunday and every other day of the week?" Maybe the rest of Craig Morgan's album talks about those things--probably it doesn't--it doesn't have to. Let a guy sing about what he loves about Sunday, and maybe it'll make other people think about what they love about Sunday and other days and if everyone's out there thinking about what they love about days in the world, there'll be more good things happening.
"havin' a hallelujah good time, a smile on everybody's face"
If not, it's worth a shot. It's at least worth 99 cents.
What I love about Sunday in Uganda is the same thing I loved about Sunday in Nigeria. Things are quiet, things are slow, you have to go out of your way to find something to distract you from the calmness of everything. In that calmness I'm able to sit and listen to an American song and think about things and write some rambling junk that starts somewhere and ends, because I intended it too, with thanking the people who have contributed to sending me back to Uganda Christian University.
I'm here. I'm coaching the basketball team, we're 1-1 in the second division of the MTN League, we've gotta win the rest of our games in order to move on to the next round and then to the playoffs where we have to finish either first or second to move up to first division next year. Friday (June 10) Robert and Goeff Mugabe arrive on a bus from Mombassa, Kenya. They are brothers, orphans, and good basketball players who are the first two scholarship athletes at UCU. They'll be able to join us as soon as they come and hopefully get us the wins we need to move up to first division. They'll begin studying in September. For this summer semester, I'm teaching a European Novels course. We finish Madame Bovary this week and move onto Voltaire’s Candide next. I'm theorizing a lot with UCU administrators about how we can develop an Athletic Department at UCU that will benefit the University as well as the student-athletes for years to come. Soon we'll move into putting the theories into practice. It's our hope that I'll be able to stay here a few more years, devoting time and energy to developing the Athletic Department, and then leave it running in the hands of Ugandans I'm currently working with.
"That's What I Love About Sunday" just topped my Most Played chart.
Along with those things I'm expected to do by the folks here at UCU, I'm communicating as constantly as possible by text message and email and phone calls with Louise Kane who is up in Northern Ireland. July 1st Louise lands in Uganda for four months of doing serious work for God's coming Kingdom. Louise will be living just up the hill from my place. Four months, sixteen Sundays.
"you curled up next to me, the smell of jasmine wakes us up"
God is so good.