They're back.  In the first weeks of yet another tour of the U.S., the Rolling Stones, whose members are all in their late seventies, continue to perform.  Although they are now without their long time drummer Charlie Watts, who tragically died in August, the band presses on.  Do the Stones need the money?  Hardly.  Judging from some remarks that lead singer Mick Jagger made in an interview in 2020, however, that, "I miss performing," perhaps the band simply plays on because its members enjoy what they're doing.

    I saw the Stones for the first time in 1969.  It was a wild show.  Put on at the Los Angeles Forum, now the home of the Los Angeles Lakers, the show was supposed to begin at 7:00 p.m.  However, due to some delays in shifting the arena from one used for ice hockey to one used for a rock and roll band, the show didn't actually start until 10:00.  A second show that was scheduled to follow the first didn't wrap up until 5:00 a.m. the next morning.  It was a long night for everyone.

    When I consider how long the Stones have been making music, I marvel:  the musical imagination seems extraordinarily fecund.  While some may, with justification, write the current iteration of the Stones off as commercially crass, and others may, also with justification, view the Stones as exploiters of a culture of whim and self-expression, and still others may, again, with justification, believe the Stones should retire and force the Baby Boomers to listen to more contemporary music, it remains that, for all of their flaws, the Stones represent real life proof that this world is more than an accident and that we humans are more than collections of chemicals.

    To wit, a created universe, a creative God.