When the song is over

The show is over.

I'll miss it.

I wonder what will come next.

Sunday was the last show for Q107's "Psychedelic Sunday."  Normally I don't like to listen to golden oldies radio.  Most often when I turn on the radio I want to hear something new and different from what I've heard before.

But for some years now it has been a beloved, sacred ritual once I leave the church after worship and get in the car to drive home, to turn on the radio, tune in to Q107, turn up the volume a bit, and by the time I make the right turn out of the parking lot and onto Highway 8, be listening to some rock tune from the late '60's that takes me back.

Takes me back.

I wonder about that.  What it means.

Takes me back ... as in back in time?  Feeling transported to another, earlier time of my life?  That's what nostalgia is.  Slipping the bonds and burdens of the present to escape for a while to a simpler time.

But maybe also takes me back ... as in feeling welcomed even in my prodigal emptiness and brokenness, back into a father's house.  And to my great surprise, feasted there for who I am, always have been, and always will be in his eyes and heart? 

I know there was something about that in the listening.  

It wasn't just nostalgia; that can happen any day of the week.  

It also had something to do with the reassurance and re-affirmation of the goodness and acceptability of me.  Of all of me.  Of even these slightly rougher edges of me -- and of other even rougher things, that didn't and don't always fit in to home and church as they are taught to us.  It was part of what sabbath at its best is about.

And I wonder if it's just me.  Or do all of us somehow feel (even worry) that we won't or can't be taken back?  That we're too used.  Or used up.  Broken.  No longer in the original packaging.  Damaged goods.

"Psychedelic Sunday" was an important part of my Sunday routine.  My sabbath rest.  My longing and the answer to my longing to be taken back, and to be able to be taken back.

And now the show is over.

Much to my pleasure the last song played was "The Song is Over" -- a Pete Townshend song by The Who, the closing lines of which are:

The song is over

The song is over

Searchin' for a note, pure and easy

Playing so free, like a breath rippling by

The song is from the album "Who's Next."  

I wonder what will come next.  

How next I will know on a regular basis that great sabbath truth, that pure and easy note of grace that I can be -- and am, taken back.  

For who I am.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44dzUArKmYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DWDa4yMzcA

Should-ers and shoulders: I know I'm capable of being either one.

Last night we were in the ER again.  From 7:30 pm to 1:30 am.  Not a good night.

And while we were there, sometime around 9:30 Japhia's purse was stolen.  Then quickly found in a bathroom trash can.  But with her wallet and its contents -- cash, bank and credit cards, significant ID cards, and who knows what else gone.  A terrible night.

And just as tiring a morning-and-afternoon after.

We've received a lot of help, though.  Caring support and helpful direction.  Some predictable advice.

And I think I've discovered one kind of help I welcome, and another kind I don't.

The latter -- the kind of help that I would rather not receive in a time of crisis, is that of those who are natural "should-ers."  The kind who say things like, "You know, you shouldn't really have done that ... or made a practice of such-and-such ... or have been there in the first place.  Really, you should ..."  Which actually means -- or at least comes across as, "I never do that."  Or, "What I always do is ..."   Which quickly seems to suggest, at least in the mind of the listener, "It really is your own fault, you know."

The should-ers.  Often the best-intentioned and sympathetic-hearted people in the world, and people I love and cherish as friends most of the time.  But in a time of crisis I think I might choose to not even tell them what happened.

But then there are the shoulders -- the ones who are willing to shoulder whatever the burden is, and just help bear it.  The ones who in a time of crisis -- no matter how it came about, will say things like, "How terrible!  I'm so sorry.  There's some important things to do now, aren't there?  What can I do to help you?  Will you let me help?"  

And nothing more than that for the moment.  Just a shoulder to lean on, and to count on.

Shoulders, not should-ers, are the ones we are glad for in a time like last night and this morning.  Thank God for the shoulders all around us. 

Getting down the beach together, ten feet at a time

Last week -- for nine days actually, Japhia was in the hospital.  Several times a day I traveled between home and hospital.  Folks at the church put up with my absence, and a good friend stepped into the pulpit on Sunday to give me a break and some help.

At the same time my brother-in-law, in Vancouver for an annual week-long golf-trip vacation with two good friends, was lying instead in limbo in a hospital there with a gallstone, pancreatitis and an indefinite prognosis, with my sister stuck here without any rational way to be with him.

And from my son I learned that my first wife had fallen and broken her arm, and he was suddenly having to be big-time caregiver.

What a wounded, limping bunch we are.

And in the midst of this I happened to see a 4-minute video of an elderly man and his wife walking back to their car after an afternoon at the beach.  His name is Duncan, hers is Cathy.

And the walk goes like this.  

Cathy sits in a folding beach chair.  While she sits, Duncan carries a second chair 10 feet ahead, and sets it in the sand.  Then he walks back to where Cathy is sitting, takes her by the arm and leads her slowly to the second chair, where she sits down.  After which he goes back to get the first chair, carries it past where Cathy is sitting, and sets it down 10 feet farther on.  Then he walks back to Cathy, takes her arm and helps her walk to the new chair ten feet along, where she sits down.  Then Duncan walks back to the vacated chair, carries it past where Cathy is now sitting, places it in the sand another ten feet along, and goes back to help Cathy to this chair.

Over and over again. Ten feet at a time.  Until they get to where they need to be.

Cathy is sick and weak, dying of cancer.  She has an oxygen tank that Duncan carries for her while he helps her walk, and places on her lap when he goes to move a chair.  Ten feet is all she can walk at a time in the sand.

Cathy died seven months after the day of that walk.  Duncan and Cathy did not know they were being video-taped, and when Duncan was asked later about their walk, he said, "When she got sick, it was just the right thing to do.  She loved the calmness [of the sea], and she loved putting her feet in the water."

In the video, all the while he is helping his wife walk down the beach -- him walking fifty feet back and forth for every ten of hers, Duncan is whistling and perfectly content.  The woman who shot the video and later met Duncan says, "Here he was slowing down and showing her kindness, like he didn't have a care in the world, like that was what he was created for, just to help her along."

If you want to see the video and the fuller story of Duncan and Cathy's walk go to http://www.cbc.ca/radio/docproject/how-a-viral-video-brought-two-strangers-together-just-when-they-needed-each-other-most-1.4626772