Time

Ecclesiastes 3:1

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven

Today is the 40th anniversary of the classic rock album Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." I recall first listening to the album back in late '70's or early '80's. My older brother had just bought a sweet Harman Kardan stereo receiver and kicking speakers. I had, of course, had heard the songs on the album before, I just don't recall doing so.

Our house was a Disco Free Zone and we only listened to Classic Rock--and by the late 70's or sooner this work by Pink Floyd was already in the Pantheon of the Rock Acropolis. Instant Karma Classic.  With the stereo and speakers arrival, it made an auditory memory that lasts to this day. One of the tracks, "Money", had a cool back-and-forth tracking vibe between the speakers and I was fascinated by the engineering and musicianship.

My older brother Mike had a rabid anti-Disco fever bordering on obsessive blood lust, normally reserved for Neo-Cons like Dick Cheney. Disco was all about the boogie-oogie, here today, gone tomorrow. Until the next recycled dance tune cropped up like a weed. No lasting or permanence. Saturday Night Fever, Sunday Morning Regret.

These bands from England like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, were artistically so advanced that all we can do to this day is admire their craft. Very few American Bands could hang in this aristocracy. Ironic how these Brits took American Blues, electrified and lyrically amped it up, and then it came back to our shores. Only Jimi Hendrix topped them, as an African-American with Native Peoples blood, he was the final authority--and they knew it. Hendrix was still developing lyrically and musically when he passed.

I don't think there has ever been a more Ecclesiastes-like song, overtly Christian or not, that ever nailed it like the song "Time" on Dark Side of the Moon.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

Quiet desperation is not just the English way. It is the world's way. Despite the cacaphony of distracting voices trying to disrupt the contemplation of eternity, God has placed eternity in the heart of man. And the heart's voice speaks softy yet magically.