“I think it’s so groovy now…”
If you know how the rest of the song goes, you might be telling your age. The full refrain goes, “I think it’s so groovy now that people are finally getting together. I think it’s wonderful and how that people are finally getting together.” It’s from a popular 60’s song, “Reach Out in the Darkness”, by the husband and wife folk duo “Friend and Lover.” It also might be the theme song as the world begins to put the pandemic in the rear-view mirror. We’re not quite there yet, but it is indeed ‘wonderful and how’ that people are finally getting together.
But they’re not getting together in the same ways. Some are masking. Some are vaccinated. Social distancing is still practiced in many spheres. ZOOM is not going away. Neither is the benefit many gained by working from home. People, however, have realized that it is indeed time to get together in whatever way they can. As the book of Genesis says, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
The picture is a rock that pokes above the surface of the Catawba River at River Bend Park. On this sunny day, it was the preferred gathering place for dozens of turtles. They apparently hadn’t heard about social distancing. They did know, however, that it was time to get together, which they did with great enthusiasm.
After repeating the ear-catching phrase, “I think it’s so groovy now…”, the song continues with a prophetic command. “Reach out in the darkness… and you may find a friend.” Many have changed their habits since that fateful March 2020. Some good, some not so good. I stopped going to the Y and attending various networking events, both of which are important for my physical and emotional well-being. Some have lost their spiritual connection with a church, a mainstay of their life before the pandemic.
In some respects, I’ve become too comfortable in the darkness and letting my introverted tendencies take over. In that darkness, I’ll never find that new ‘friend’.
Is it time for you to ‘reach out of the darkness’?