How's Your Memory

Scripture

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.  (Psalm 139:14-16 NRSV) 

How’s Your Memory?

There’s lovely restaurant not far south of us called Terra Cotta Inn. Almost equally far north is a town called Terra Nova (don’t blink or you’ll miss it!). Proximity is apparently not an aid to memory because when we start discussing going for a drive to either place I can’t think of their names for the life of me.  

When I mention it to friends, it seems I’m not alone on trying access little details – and it surprises me how many younger people are afflicted similarly. Obviously age is a factor but I also wonder if our lives are so full of sensory bombardments of all sorts that finding one memory item  is like seeking a needle in a haystack.  

I’ve added to your bombardment with my “Pop the Corks and pass the Butter Tarts” podcasts/blogs. In the process writing and recording them I’ve been doing a lot of “remembering” but I realize it is limited to my own perspective of my life and has huge holes both of content and even accuracy.   

In a lovely recent book by Jurgen Moltmann, he says something I’ve found profoundly meaningful; Who has a wholistic view of us? I myself am only ever conscious of part of my entire life. My memories include only fragments of my life story, and yet the rest of the story has happened. God alone is able to survey all of a life lived. (Resurrected to Eternal Life. Jurgen Moltmann. Fortress Press)  We are known, loved and never forgotten in the loving mind of eternal God.  

A Prayer for Today

Come, Holy Spirit, enlighten our minds, cleanse our motives, clarify our intentions, and guide our ambitions. When full understanding is not possible, give us faith to trust in you anyway. When our questions are greater than our answers, give us faith to trust in you anyway. When our doubts outweigh our certainties, give us faith to trust in you anyway. In the name of the One who makes possible the answer to this prayer, in the name of Jesus, we offer this request. Amen