Sunday Morning Coming Down

By Bobby Neal Winters

Word has come to me here in Asuncion that Kris Kristofferson has passed away.  I was thinking of him just yesterday morning.

I am in Paraguay for 3 weeks.  I’ve made a point to try to find an English language church service here. Sometimes we pray for help; I googled. I did a search for “English language church service.”  I got the website for St. Andrew’s Anglican church.  Services were at 10am.  There was a location.  

The site had last been updated in 2016.  Churches are notorious for not keeping their webpages up to date, but it was all I had.

Google maps assured me that it was a 34-minute walk, but I gave myself an hour, starting at 9.

It was a beautiful morning.  Traffic was light, mostly people who were clearing going to church.  I walked past two or three churches where services were being held in Spanish.

The sounds of liturgy came out from the sanctuaries, which were open to the outside.  Outside men stood in white shirts.  I don’t know if they were waiting for the next service, waiting as their wives worshiped without them, or just having a smoke.

I walked past kindergartens and grocery stores; past restaurants and bars; past car dealerships and ice cream parlors. 

Google maps took me up a street called Avenida Senador Huey P. Long.  Yes, that Huey P. Long.  It was a very nice neighborhood with inviting restaurants, bars, and pubs.  Senator Long would have approved.

I crossed Avenida Espana.  Google told me I was getting close.

“Destination on your left,” it said.

No. Not there. Neither a church nor anything that could plausibly serve as a church. Ever.

I still had half an hour, so I searched again.  This time from my phone instead of my computer.  I don’t know, maybe it would make a difference.

There it popped up: Saint Andrew’s Chapel.  This time there was a picture.  There was a sign in the picture in front of the church that confirmed that services started at 10AM.  Google maps confirmed that the chapel was on Avenida Espana...50 minutes by foot from where I stood.

Maybe I am stubborn. (Surely not.) Maybe I just didn’t have anything better to do. (Probably.) I began the trek.  Google told me I would get there by 10:24 am.  

So I would be a little late.

I began.

I set a good pace.  I was enjoying the morning, practicing my Spanish by reading signs.  Being philosophical about how they used English in some of their advertisements compared how we use Spanish. 

Then it got surreal.

I was walking under a palm tree and a bird dive-bombed my head.  It was kind of scary, but no harm done.

I walked two blocks further and it happened again.

I began to think about Joseph in pharaoh's prison and the baker who had had the dream about the loaves of bread being picked at by birds.

Nevertheless, I pressed on.  See the remark concerning stubbornness above.

Google assured me my destination was ahead on the right. I looked and saw the chapel.  I also noted there weren’t many vehicles there.  Not many as in not any.

The gate to the driveway was closed. 

Hmmm.

I talked to the gate to the sidewalk and checked the handle. It opened; I entered.

In the twinkling of an eye, there was a guard there.

Okay, the guard was somewhere between 16 and 20 years old; he wasn’t wearing a uniform; he didn’t have a gun; but I am still going to call him a guard.

I’ve reached a level in my Spanish where I can make myself understood a lot of the time, and I can kind of guess what they are saying to me.

This was the Sunday the priest went to preach to the Guarani, the local  indigenous people. There would be church at this location next Sunday.  

I walked back to a supermarket I’d passed and got a bottle of pop. Paraguay’s version of Fresca.  I drank my pop and thought it over.  Then I got a taxi to head back to the room.

Today I learned that Kris Kristofferson passed away yesterday. I think he would’ve kind of liked my story.

There’s nothing short of dying/ half as lonely as the sound/ of a sleeping city sidewalk/ Sunday Morning coming down.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.