keep on…

Ain’t nothin’ holdin’ me back nothin’
I’ll keep right on
Right on truckin’
Ain’t nothin’ holdin’ me back nothin’
I’ll keep right on
Right on truckin’
Lyrics Keep on Truckin
Eddie Kendicks

(Robert Crumb’s famous comic, Keep on Truckin / 1968)

When I was an adolescent, Robert Crumb’s iconic 1960’s cartoon of the “keep on truckin”
man was a prolific image.
It was reproduced on everything from T-shirts to posters to coffee mugs …
and as an adolescent, I certainly bought into the image….
doodling it all over my school notebooks, having mother sew a patch on my favorite jacket…

And so perhaps now it is more than just little ironic that the thought of this certain
little cartoon percolates back to the surface of my consciousness.

This exaggerated comic drawing appealed to me not so much because the image was
heavily tuned into the hippie / anti establishment movement,
as that was a far cry from my little corner of the world,
but rather because it seemed to represent a lackadaisical, yet persistent,
air of perseverance.

A sense of pressing on while just keeping on…
Going on despite any sort of obstacle….
As in stepping over any sort of barrier,
or just letting things roll off like the water off the back of a duck…

And as it often so happens in life,
those seemingly benign little things from our past that must have made some
sort of timely or even a minimal impression,
come bubbling back to the surface just when most needed…

Perseverance…steadfastness…persistence…
or as stated by dictionary.com, the continuance in a state of grace to the end,
leading to eternal salvation.

And so, as I find myself “truckin” on over to Dads..
where all is in a state of hanging in,
hanging on
and hopefully keeping on….
indeed, here’s to the notion of keep on keeping on–
trunking on with Grace…
all the way to eternal Salvation…
Cause it’s the only way to go…

being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might
so that you may have great endurance and patience,
and giving joyful thanks to the Father,
who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom
of the Son he loves,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
1 Colossians 1:11-14