From a Distance

From a Distance

We can’t measure anyone… or anything at all

Long ago, when I was a musician, I used to have an affinity for folk-rock. Although The Beatles were my favorite band, I really like The Eagles, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and other folk-rock songwriters and composers who have slipped the surly bonds of my aging memory.

One of my favorite folk-rock songs is called “From a Distance” by P. F. Sloan. Obscure, maybe, but the haunting melody and lofty lyrics of that song are still wafting through my old brain even today and inspired me to write this – about them and us.

So you have a better idea of what this is all about I’ll share the lyrics with you:

From a Distance
(P.F. Sloan)

Have you ever heard a lonely church bell ring?
Have you ever heard a crying angel sing?
From a distance, from a distance,
You can hear a crying angel sing.
Oh, she’s crying for the sadness tomorrow’s sins may bring.

Have you ever seen a star fall from the sky?
From a distance, It looks just like heaven’s lost an eye.
From a distance, from a distance,
Looks like heaven’s lost an eye…
Now there’s one less change for God
To see you and I

Faith my friend is so hard to recognize
When you’re travelling all alone in the night…

Have you ever wondered just how tall is tall?
From a distance,
The highest building still looks very small.
From a distance, from a distance,
The highest building still looks small.
Oh, we can’t measure anyone or anything at all

Faith my friend is so hard to recognize
When you’re travelling all alone in the night
Just look for the light and…

Have you ever heard a lonely church bell ring?
Have you ever heard a crying angel sing?
From a distance, from a distance,
You can hear a crying angel sing.
Oh, she’s crying for the sadness tomorrow’s sins may bring.

(PF Sloan “From a Distance”).

If you want to hear the song, watch the video below.

“From a Distance” was a moderate hit in 1966 when I was 58 year years younger and a whole lot less caustic and cynical than this old man is now.

I had high ideals and naively believed that good always conquers bad, and that right would always win over wrong. I believed those who loved and treated others well would always rise above those who didn’t.

I’m sad to say the world didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to way back then in 1966 when I had great high hopes for the future.

President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; I was in high school. And for my senior-year history project, I choose JFK’s inaugural address as my subject. I memorized the entire speech and believed the words I read…

“… Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah–to “undo the heavy burdens . . . (and) let the oppressed go free.

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved…”

Those were good words. And I, like most young people then, was the consummate idealist and I believed those words; I believed in the essential goodness of humankind. I believed in those idealistic dreams that young people everywhere shared.

And I am so sorry to say that I am no longer that young, eager idealist. The world has rusted me, warped me, and corrupted me. It took away my innocence. I washed away the beauty and joy of knowing that goodness and love would always conquer evil and hate. Perhaps my eyes are old and my vision blurred, but the world I see today is not the world I yearned for then. It is not even close.

I see so many blinded by prejudice, so many pointing the finger in blame. I can’t blame anyone because there is no “them”. There is only “us”.  And I can’t close my eyes and pretend I like what I see.

Our educational system, once the world’s best, is now ranked 10th or lower. Our healthcare system once ranked #1 now ranks 11th – and also the most expensive.

It’s easy to place the blame. We could blame the greedy, the prejudiced, or the people who hate. We can always blame “them”.

But there is no them – there is only us. And “… we can’t measure anyone or anything at all.”

But we do so like to compare and measure. The USA has 813 billionaires (we are essentially tied with China). I would like to have to deal with some of the problems some of these billionaires face. Like the problem of getting my yacht out of the shipbuilding yard and to the ocean but can’t because a bridge over the canal leading out of the shipyard is too low to allow it to pass.

And I think the combined wealth of the world’s billionaires is over $14 trillion. And I think there are over 800 million starving people on the Earth. If we took just 10% of that $14 trillion we could give each starving person $1700 worth of food and feed that starving person for a year.

But I can’t judge; I can’t measure. And I can’t blame “them” because there is only us – no one to blame. The world isn’t how I would like it to be and  It’s surely not how I dreamed it would be all those years ago.

I’d like to say I’m not to blame for how things are, but I am and so are you. We can’t blame them, because “them” are “us”.

“Have you ever wondered just how tall is tall?
From a distance,
The highest building still looks very small.
From a distance, from a distance,
The highest building still looks small.
Oh, we can’t measure anyone or anything at all…”

You don’t know how much I would like to place the blame for the way the world is, or for what’s going on in my country… or for everything else I feel is wrong. But I can’t…. because the them we are so eager to blame is us.

All I can do now is try to be the best person and hope my children and grandchildren are a better “us” than we were. 

And to remember that from a distance…

we can’t measure anyone or anything at all…