Of spangled vests and bubblegum music

A-B-C, easy as one-two-three …

It was a crowd favorite every Saturday afternoon at Skateland in 1970. Round and round the rink we rolled to favorites like the Jackson 5. It was, I can say without fear, a different time. Now my children roll their eyes to such silly, sweet music. They guffaw at the rhinestones and the wide lapels and the platform heels for guys. And rightly so. Sigh.

The recent passing of favored icons compels our nostalgia. Ed McMahon was more than a TV star, he was a time-keeper. Bedtime was always marked with the familiar theme music and the ubiquitous “Heeeeere’s Johny!” Farah’s red swim suit did not just propel us into puberty, it made us a generation, an age, a time. We were the first to consider it plausible that private detectives could look like supermodels, that bikinis and guns could go together, and we changed both men and women because of it.

And Michael. They will say that his greatest album came in the 80's, and will speak endlessly of the strange creature he became in his later years, but I will always remember the Jackson 5 dream I wanted to live.

And now they are gone from us, these and many more, reminding us that nothing is forever, everything passes, nothing lasts. Will we?

“For everything,” says the Teacher, “there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

An important verse, even a great song, not just because it is of that generation, but because it is of all of them, the eternal and universal truth made for these times and for the next ones that will also surely come. All that is exists only for its time, until the next comes and what was is only memory. He is the God of ADD, never satisfied with what is, restlessly passing from season to season, from age to age, from the joy that is unto the joy yet to come.

Shall we fear this impetuous creator? By no means! Let us rather match his impatient love with our own, grateful for the moments that we are given and keen to share the next adventure. Having done great things, he is eager for the next. And rightly so. Aren’t we? For his journey is ours, marked with the signposts of our treasured memories but winding ever forward to new and wonderful places we cannot imagine.

Yes, our children will never have it as good as we did. Thanks be to God for that!