Friday, May 9, 2025

How long the memory. . .

As someone well into the seventh decade of his life, I know the problems you encounter with memory.  I am forever wondering why I entered this room or that, where I put down my pen, what I was going to say, and what word I was looking for.  You could say I forgot and that would be true but the other side of forgetfulness is that I remember more clearly things that I thought I had long forgotten -- things from the earlier years of my life that have now become cherished memories.  I am, however, under no illusions about how long I will be remembered.  No, I have spent too much time in flea markets looked at the once cherished photos and frames that might have been heirlooms and not are simply the faces of the forgotten sold as halfway decent junk.

How long the memory is a pretty good question.  I fear the memory of all of us is diminishing, helped into oblivion by the short news cycle and the digital images which quickly give way to the next best thing to come along.  We have not simply agreed with Ford who said history is bunk.  No, we have done him one better.  We have run from the past to see everything through the lens of the present.  It is a fairly simplistic view of life.  Cause and effect and then forgetting it all when the next curious thing presents itself.  Our memories are short, too short, and it is becoming a serious issue.  We are so content living in the moment that we no longer miss the past nor feel bound to remember it accurately at all.  It has become so much easier for us to live in the invented history we imagine or to give up the whole idea of history.  I wonder when we will awaken to the fact that leaving the past behind is the first step to making the future worse rather than better.

We look at our lives less in terms of what happened in those lives than if we are happy about the life we lived.  I suppose it could be asked but I am not sure it matters.  When my kids were small, when life was busy and filled with demands, and we had not much money and a thousand claims to every moment, we hoped things would get better. Now I find myself spending more and more of the day trying to recapture what have now become my best memories of that family and of my life as husband and dad within that family.  Surprise, surprise, I find myself asking not only what God was doing in my life but also thinking a great deal more about how what happened in my yesterdays impacted the man who I am today.  Little things become big in comparison and big things sometimes become small.  Bucket lists are a tacit admission that we did not do what we wanted and no matter what we did do, it was not enough.  I am more enamored with the list of things done than those which await doing.  Perhaps I am lazy.  Perhaps I have learned that all is not how it first appears.

I have discovered that the people I thought were old when I was a kid were probably younger than I am today.  I have discovered that memories can be made out of little things as well as major events.  I have discovered that what I long for more than money or power is to hear the voice of my parents and grandparents one more time.  I have discovered from some of these ponderings that I am building a memory in others even as the same is built in me.  It makes more sense to me now that the thief on the cross begged simply to be remembered when the Lord came into His kingdom.  It also makes more sense to me that the worst of curses is to have you erased from all memories -- most especially from the Lord's own.

2 comments:

John Flanagan said...

Your view of “memory” is fascinating and insightful. It is my habit as well to often muse introspectively over the broad landscape of memories of the life I have lived thus far, and now, after 80 years and 4 months, there is much to ponder. I look more deeply at past events and people I knew, and with the clarity of old age, and perhaps a little more wisdom, I recognize the grace of God was at work in times of both grief and sorrow. I see my sinful times also, when my behavior was deserving and often received God’s discipline and correction. Yet, more recently I have strived to be more conscious of mortality, as the years pile up, as the end, though hard to predict, is likely within the next few years or earlier. So, in my thought life, I have ventured farther away from the past, with the idea is that the past is gone, and I know there are memories to acknowledge, but it seems fruitless to dwell there. Have you ever wondered if the Apostle Paul spent much time remembering his youthful experiences before he was saved? The good old days, hanging out with the Pharisees and his school chums? Or did he want to dwell mainly on the words of Christ, and on his place as a leader of the church, knowing in his mind that martyrdom was likely to come sooner or later? And so now, my memory bank, as I like to see it, is a place I no longer wish to dwell in, reviewing the sins of the past, and the good times either. My focus now is on the Lord’s direction, because His word tells me that there is the present and the future only, and that the past is gone forever. Jesus said, “In my Father’s House are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.” Thus, that is the perspective I hold now, and should my mind suffer loss in the years to come, should memories fade into oblivion, should dementia or Alzheimer’s take away my thoughts, and words no longer expressed, I know that the Lord still has a place for me, and a future beyond anything I can imagine. Soli Deo Gloria

gamarquart said...

Fortunately, God also has a poor memory, and that is by His own doing, Jeremiah 31:34, "...and I will remember their sins no more."