Hello, Goodbye: Lessons from Stephen Colbert

How We Take Our Final Bow Matters

Sir Paul McCartney and Stephen Colbert sing “Hello, Goodbye” on the series finale of Late Night with Stephen Colbert, May 21st, 2026.

Dear friends,

When I got home from my work trip I tuned into The Late Show with Stephen Colbert one last time. The show ended with The Beatles classic song, Hello, Goodbye “You say goodbye, I say hello” sung by none other than Sir Paul McCartney himself, along with a host of other musicians as well. This was a callback to The Beatles’ United States debut in the same theater in February of 1964. There were countless celebrity appearances from Paul Rudd to Bryan Cranston to Ryan Reynolds, and of course the other late night hosts. They all sought to remind Stephen, and subsequently his audience tuning in that goodbyes aren’t really all they’re made up to be—and that darkness (even that of an anomaly that tears at the fabric of the space-time continuum as described by Neil deGrasse Tyson—watch the show, you’ll get what I’m talking about) never has the final word in our stories. We have the opportunity to work in the crafting of our own endings.

Stephen offered us a masterclass in taking our final bow—he showed us that the best way to take leave is to do so with onlookers cheering you on and wishing you more than to simply cling to the thing you’ve always known. Mentors and those Colbert had enabled alike wished for him that he would see the gifts he has been given, along with the gifts he has given to others. Colbert asked Paul McCartney in the interview portion of the show if Paul liked change—and McCartney adamantly expressed he didn’t like that sort of thing. I solidly fall in that camp as well. Yet I know from last night’s show that to say goodbye to something gives you the opportunity to re-introduce the main points of the plot. Endings allow us to take stock in what matters and allow us to look forward into God’s unfolding future.

These moments we find ourselves in are both precarious and uncharted. Individually and collectively we are forced to reckon with the fact that we are not where we desire to be. Yet we also know that this too can change into something more beautiful and lovely. This too, shall end. The weeping may endure for a night—but joy comes in the morning as the Psalmist writes. The endurance we show (both in the weeping and the moving through the situation at hand) gives us the opportunity to help usher in a new dawn that doesn’t end in the forces of evil and wickedness winning. We can collectively choose our own ending. Human agency is a powerful gift that God gave us. We can end this here and now and choose a better way.

To put a fine point on it: the way that our communities, our country, our world will be left by us should look better than we found it. I am in the camp that believes Stephen Colbert did just that with his show and his entire late night talk show legacy. It may seem topsy-turvy now, but in the annals of history we will see that when strong forces that sought to end Colbert’s legacy attempted to take a fatal blow, they only made his legacy stronger and more brilliant. The same is true for all of us in our varied ways. We shall yet prevail.

Thanks for the laughs, Stephen.

In hope,

Rob

In front of the Ed Sullivan Theater for a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert