Morning Has Broken

How a boyhood moment of faith sparked a lifelong passion for music

These are the stories behind the songs, friends, and even celebrities that have carried me through. We begin with the moment that defined the life I live and the man that I have become…

I still remember watching his fingers picking at the strings of his guitar. It was like witnessing the coolest, most amazing magic trick up close and in person. I was mesmerized. Every movement of his hands made sound come from the guitar; a beautiful sound that soon became music.

I was 9 years old, and I had seen lots of musicians playing songs on television. That had a special magnetic charm, but this was next level. This was my first experience with a song happening right there in front of me. I was far too young to make a conscious decision, but I somehow found myself memorizing the moment. I have spent all my life revisiting that room in my mind. I often look down at myself as a wide-eyed kid, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a small studio apartment and soaking in every note as the man on the stool in front of me played. His name was John.

As a kid in the Bronx, New York City school system in 1972, I was an oddity. Unkempt from rarely having clean clothes, with long, hippie-like hair like my dad. I was the first born and the only son in a family that eventually grew to include three sisters. The societal notion of gender and birth order rendering me the favorite was wrong. In truth, I carried the mantle as the great hope of my uneducated blue-collar Italian-Catholic family from the moment I could speak. That meant being a man at the sacrifice of boyhood. Girls were coddled and hugged. Boys did homework and chores – and then more homework. Childhood was training for adulthood. By the time I was 9, I was hitting the mark, I think, except in one area. I had no religious training. Getting right with God became important as my parents got older. But they couldn’t afford to send me to private parochial school, or even to the paid weekly religious instruction classes that the neighborhood public school kids attended every Wednesday afternoon.

As luck would have it, John lived in our apartment building. He was 22 years old and preparing to go into seminary to become a priest. He was tall. In my eyes, he was as big as an oak tree, though I would guess that he was about 6 feet tall. He had super long and wavy hair. It was dark brown with bits of blonde. He had a scraggly beard, and he wore round-framed glasses like John Lennon. In so many ways, he was the vision of the ultimate counter-culture dude. The coolest thing about John was that he seemed to like everyone, even though his imminent vocation seemed to freak everyone out. I can still hear my mom and her friends huddled on the stoop in front of the building, wondering why such a handsome man would give up women for God. I didn’t understand what they meant at the time, but I did notice that he always said “God bless you” to everyone. I liked it; especially when he would say it to me. I would think, “John is telling God to bless me. Cool! But how does he know God?”

One day after school, my mom told me that John was going to teach me about God. More school, I thought. No! But I wasn’t given a choice. I showed up to his apartment as told. I was terrified. I smelled something funny coming through the door, and it scared me even more. When John answered, he towered over me in cut off denim shorts and a white t-shirt. I stood there frozen, saucer-eyed and mouth agape, for a second before walking in.

His apartment was a small studio. The only furniture was a beat-up old couch and a wooden rocking chair on one side of the space. On the other side was a church like altar, replete a large crucifix, candles, and a wooden stool that I later found out was used to kneel and pray. Next to the stool was a podium with a metal case that created that funny smell I’d noticed earlier. It was frankincense. Placed next to the podium was an acoustic guitar. It was beautiful. I used to stare at it constantly.

I don’t remember much from that first day other than John promising that our lessons would be fun. He would teach me about the goodness of God. He would teach me about prayer, and we would sing some songs. There were no tests. “There’s no point in tests because there are no wrong answers with God,” he said. Those words are emblazoned in my mind to this day. “How could there be wrong answers with everyone, but not with God?” I wondered for a long time. I don’t know that I still have an answer for that.

I quickly grew to love my sessions with John. Sometimes he would be strict and super structured in our lessons. Other times, he would suggest that we simply listen to the radio and talk while he prepared his dinner. “God doesn’t just live in prayer,” he told me once. “He’s right there all around us. He’s always listening.” I marvelled at this revelation. “Y’mean, he’s listening right now? Like I can say ‘hey God,’ and he hears me?”

“He sure can,” John said. “Cool, huh?”

Just as I nodded “yes,” John cut his finger. He’d been chopping vegetables and the knife slipped.

“DAMMIT!” He exclaimed. I gasped in horror. I’d never heard him use any kind of swear words before. He caught himself and said, “God will understand because sometimes you make mistakes.” Then he looked up with pleading eyes and said, “I’m sorry God, please forgive me.”

It didn’t take long before John became a hero-like figure to me. I talked about him constantly. I asked if I could go see him on days that were not for lessons. I was hooked on this guy. He was nice to me. He always asked me how I was. He would show interest in the smallest things I said or did. I remember the day that I was able to say the entire Our Father prayer by myself, he scooped me up and gave me the biggest hug. It felt good, but scary. Not in a bad way. It’s just that it was new. Different. Looking back, I realize that I hadn’t previously had a lot of hugging in my life. My dad never touched me, and my mom was busy doting on my sisters. That hug was both weird and instantly addictive. From that day forward, I would try extra-hard to excel at my lessons or prayers so that I would get a hug. I didn’t get them all the time, but when I did, it was awesome. But something else happened that day. John said that he had a special treat for me.

“Sit right there,” he said, pointing to a pillow on the floor. He then walked over and picked up his guitar. I felt my eyes widen. He sat in front of me and started to play. One of the songs that we both liked on the radio was “Morning Has Broken” by Cat Stevens. He played it, note for note, singing every word just like the record. Without knowing in the moment, my life was changing forever. I was experiencing living, breathing music. It lifted me in indescribable ways. When he was done, I clapped and clapped. Right then and there, we made a pact. If I kept up on my lessons, he would learn new songs to play for us to sing. Done deal.

Over the next few weeks, I’d learned lots about the bible, as well as about friendship. John was my best friend, and I told anyone who would listen. That triggered my parents. I remember hearing an argument in the halls of our building between them and John. They accused him of doing unspeakable things to me, none of which was true. He just yelled over and over that they were bad parents. When the fight ended, I was told that I could not see John anymore. I cried and begged to know why. “Because we said so,” was the answer.

That wasn’t going to stop me. The next day, I snuck upstairs and knocked on his door. He answered and urged me to not disobey my parents. I pleaded to come in. “God is watching us, nothing bad can happen,” I said.

He smiled and said, “Just for a second.”

We said the Our Father prayer at the altar, and then he told me the worst thing he possibly could.

“I am moving to school to become Father John,” he said.

I started to cry. “Can I come with you?” I asked.

His face was covered in tears. “I’m sorry, my friend. You have to stay here.”

I got hysterical. “No! No! I want to go with you. Please, pleeeease!”

He lifted me up into his arms and sat in his rocking chair. Wiping my tears. “You are such a good boy,” he said. “God loves you and so do I. You are going to be fine. He will watch over you.”

The last thing I remember was sobbing into his t-shirt. It smelled of fresh laundry detergent and frankincense. After a little while, I stopped crying and he said, “how about a song? We love songs, right?”

I sat on that pillow on the floor, as I had many times by now, and he played that guitar for me one last time. “Morning has broken…,” he sang, “Praise for the morning… fresh from the world.”

A few days later, John left. By the time I got home from school, he was gone. But he left a gift. His guitar. And a note:

“Don’t forget your prayers or our songs. And remember God is everywhere to take care of you. Love your best friend, John!”

From that moment forward, that guitar was constantly in my hands. I would quietly strum it as I listened to the radio. I didn’t know what I was doing, but the sound of my fingers on the strings felt like John was there. I kept saying that I was going to learn how to play just like John. My parents never said anything in reply, except to tell me to keep the noise down.

About a month later, we moved to new apartment in a new neighborhood. We moved a lot when I was a kid, usually because they never could keep up with the rent back in those days. When we got settled, I looked around and saw that two things didn’t make it to the new apartment. All my baby and boyhood pictures… and the guitar. Gone.

When I asked when they were going to get my stuff, I got a casual “it’s too late now” from my dad. “You don’t need that stuff. We’ll take lots of new pictures.”

“But John’s guitar!!” I whined.

“You don’t need that thing,” he said. “You’ll never learn how to play it. It’s just more junk for your mother to clean.” Years later, I asked why they left my stuff behind. They both pretended that they hadn’t. “You must not have packed it,” my mother said with a shrug. “You’re always so careless.”

Looking back, I suppose that was the moment when I stopped feeling like their son. I stopped trying to be their model boy. I just sort of drifted along with them until I wasn’t any more. They remained a super-tight family with my sisters. Ironically, shortly after John left, my parents rediscovered the church and enrolled my sisters in traditional Catholic instruction. I went along with it until I was 13, when one of the boys’ religious counsellors tried to have sex with me – the very thing that my parents had wrongfully accused John of doing. From that moment forward, I was out. Done. I had God and his true teachings in my mind and heart. I was all set, thanks. When I told my parents what happened with the counsellor, they insisted that I was misunderstanding kindness. Yet, they didn’t balk when I refused to go back. They had chosen their desired to remain ignorant to the truth and their allegiance to the church. It was another brick in an increasingly tall wall.

Still, I did the job I was born to do; I got an education and somehow figured out how to build a career. It wasn’t until it was far too late that my parents realized that following their rules would push me even further away; that I needed some of the coddling that they gave my sisters. Instead, they sent me on a solitary path from the youngest possible age. It was around the time that I graduated from high school that they suddenly tried to be the mom and dad that gave me TLC. By then, I was self-sufficient. I had learned how to be my own parent.

It was a lonely way to grow up, but it was okay. I spent countless hours conjuring memories of my first true friend in my mind. John gave me everything I needed to grow up. He gave me a lifelong belief and understanding of God. He taught me about trust and self-care. Best of all, he taught me about the exquisite beauty of live music. All those things have been constant emotional companions and lifelines that have saved me from the darkness more than anyone will ever fully understand.

Oh, and I still have that note John left behind. It’s tattered and worn. But I carry it – and him – with me always.