Yesterday

I found myself comparing necks of the old hippies, these fellow Beatles fans gathered with me to hear The Return, the Beatles tribute band. Some of the women had once been beautiful, and some still had gorgeous hair, but it was framing faces that could never be disguised as young, no matter how many nips and tucks had been surgically applied to their chins. As we waited for the Beatles to reincarnate with as much enthusiasm as we waited for time to erase the ravages of sun and ticking clocks on our collective age spots, I did an informal survey.

There were by and large, two distinct groups in the crowd. One group could almost appear to be young adults with bright shiny hair and trendy clothes ...if you squinted. Their chins did not melt with indiscernible borders into jiggling necks. Group two wore polyester stretch pants and cotton shirts from Kmart. Their hair was coarse and grey and they didn't seem aware or at least to mind that gravity was slowly hooking their noses downward along with other flesh slowly pooling around their ankles. There was a small third group - bona fide young people like Asherel and her friend Emma, who hadn't known the Beatles the first time around.

We all came together with different agendas. Group one was recreating their past. Group two was remembering their past. Group three was recording a past that they wished they'd been around to see.

We had driven 3 1/2 hours through torrential rain to get to this time warp. We had passed a sign that said, "Orchard- Peach, apples,muffins ", and Asherel had squealed, "Look! A muffin orchard! Can we pick some muffins?! "
Emma had spotted a small herd of buffalo. We had wandered through the tiny town and watched a little league baseball game going on beside a barn filled with cows that mooed as i pet their big wet noses.

And then we all twisted and shouted while a singer that looked eerily like the real John Lennon made time stand still for all the anxiously old,and the accepting old, and the awaiting old.

I loved the concert, though it went on past my bedtime. I thought of how little I relish growing old and how little of my past i remember. Still, I wouldn't trade the tumult of my youth for the wisdom(for lack of a better word) of my middle years. Nonetheless, I certainly see the appeal of recapturing a time in history that sparkled. Especially as my own sparkle fades. It is a great comfort that unlike the audience of the Beatles Return, God Himself is unchanging, immortal, and promises that we who call upon His name will be like Him. All our grey hair and vanishing eyebrows will be suffused with the glow of heavenly light.

Back at the hotel, the difference in our ages reasserted itself. I climbed into bed and awoke at midnight to hear the girls still giggling over some computer game. "Lights out girls, " I said,voice croaky with sleep and too much singing .
"But its only midnight! " the youngsters protested.

I drifted back to sleep, my brain humming, "Yesterday, oh i believe in yesterday ..."

Job 8:8-9 NIV

"Ask the former generation
and find out what their ancestors learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing,
and our days on earth are but a shadow.

Hebrews 13:8 NIV

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

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