“I knew the moment had arrived, for killing the past and coming back to life.”
One of my favorite songs by Pink Floyd is called Coming Back to Life. If you have never heard it, watch the video from the Pulse Tour. It’s just incredible. The keys, the guitar, the vocals… man, it gets me every time. Over the years it has become very meaningful to me.
Pink Floyd can be a little melancholic, but this song is a journey that moves from a place of brokenness and darkness to rebirth and “unadulterated joy.” It’s an awakening. The song begins with a question asked out of great pain — Where were you when I was struggling? There’s abandonment, betrayed, hurt, and loneliness. He’s at the bottom, contemplating the darkness, knowing he needs change, yet understanding that recovery can be a long, difficult path. But the shift happens when those lyrics hit — “I knew the moment had arrived, for killing the past and coming back to life.” Like Gandalf said… “It’s the deep breath before the plunge.” That moment when you say, “Ok. Let’s do it.” Then you stand up, pull in the deepest breath, and jump off the cliff. It’s killing the past. I have heard it phrased as the “letting go of the what was” so that you can experience freedom, hope, and life. The writer of Hebrews said it like this: shedding the weight of that which slows us down so we can run light and free — unfettered and unbound.
This is all a part of the universal narrative that spans cultures and time — the arc of life. Our humanity. We all fall. We all experience the turmoil of deep emotional darkness. Many of us have friends or family who didn’t make it. The darkness overcame them and the light seemed too far out of reach. Pushing through the pain, grief, loss, anger, and hurt, to find healing and hope [through a counselor, therapist, or a trusted friend] and deciding to get back up on your feet and choose to “come back to life,” is significant. Life-changing.
A friend of mine once asked me to imagine this song as a conversation between the holy trinity — Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Father looked from the eternal and saw the brokenness of the world He had created — their pain, hurt, and the evil darkness that settled over humanity. The Spirit felt all the pain and sensed the anguish, and the Son began to contemplate what could be done to bring healing and salvation. The Father decided to send a light into the darkness, and that light could not be overcome. The Son accepted the mission. When the Father said, “It is time,” history was forever changed. That intersection of infinite and finite was the moment where the past was destroyed and a new future was written. Life — rebirth — had come. The Spirit was given to be a guide to humanity. So now we are on this journey — headed straight into the arms of the shining Son.