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