“Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, something–
Something, something–
Joyful. Joyful? Joy full blue.”
The little wedding poem danced in my head, turning a few backflips, heavy with the weight of blue, light with joy, as I walked away from the “podcast” performed by Ken Medema and Ted Swartz as the morning’s keynote.
I wasn’t going to write a word about it. Their particular brand of genius needs to be experienced with laughter, and loved without the filter of a review.
Yet after they were done, I realized there was something to be said.
We’ve all grown old together with Ken Medema and Ted Swartz over the decades, as they have performed at National Youth Conference, Annual Conference, National Older Adult Conference. And in their new program, which they call “Curious and Clueless,” they did what we all do when we begin to feel our age. We pull out favorite record albums, and look through scrapbooks, and return to old books we’ve read before, borrowing from what we think we remember or how we want to remember our lives.
We may be blue with the realization that it’s not as easy anymore. We may find abiding joy in experiencing ourselves as creatures stretched across time. Young, middle-aged, older–all at the same time.
There were songs dredged out of the distant past, but brand new because we hadn’t heard them–or maybe we’d forgotten them. Sketches were dragged out of storage and reinflated with our knowledge of past tragedies in the present’s bright bubble. Swartz donned the personas we all have missed. And Medema wrote a song on the spot, a medley of comments from the audience, reminding us of what we have always treasured about his craft.
The weight of blue, and the joy of returning to old pleasures permeated the hall. We who live in Christ took time off from the cross to stand at heaven’s gate.
Thank you Ted and Ken.
–– Frank Ramirez is a retired pastor and frequent contributor to Church of the Brethren communications.
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