I have been cleaning out some things in my room. That always takes more time than I allocate for it. It is not because I have so much stuff---junk in the eyes of most people. I do wonder why I kept all of this, but it is not as much as I know other packrats keep. The problem with cleaning out stuff from long ago is we get trapped in the land of memory. That is not altogether bad---unless it is a bad memory!
I ran across a picture directory of a place I used to work. It was a great position and I loved doing the work and the people. A big part of me did not really want to leave that place, but I felt God was nudging me on. I always hoped I would be obedient and not simply complacent. So with some reluctance, I moved on to another place, which also has been wonderful. Guess I have been lucky.
The photo directory stopped me in my tracks. I quickly thought I would toss it. It was a long time ago. Some of those folks, no doubt, are deceased. The place is both the same and surely not the same. I have virtually no role there anymore---nor should I have a role. But the memories were very real. And the place came alive again in my mind. I could hear voices, see smiles and all the rest. Memories can do that.
I remember well the words of St. Augustine when he quipped in the fifth century that memory is the means by which the past lives---in memory the past is present in our mind. So seeing these photos made the past come to be present---in my mind. No one in the room with me would have noticed any difference. To someone else, I was simply sitting there thumbing through an old book. For them there was literally nothing to remember---to be put back together again.
There were even some pictures of me. I am always slightly amazed to see myself in a picture. Of course, I know what I look like, but I don’t think much about how I look. Indeed, there is still a bit of vanity in my bones, but not too much anymore. I recognize I am both that guy in the pictures and I am no longer that guy in the picture. Am I the same guy? I don’t know and don’t have much interest here to chase that deeper philosophical question.
But it does provoke me to recall something I read some time ago from Thomas Moore. Early in his book, Original Self, Moore tells us “Memory holds us together as individuals and as communities.” (22) I think it is appropriate to say that memory holds us together. Otherwise, we would simply be creatures who live today and that disappears. There is no continuity---no enduring sense of self. I know the Buddhist says the self does not really exist; it is an illusion. Right now, however, it seems real enough, so I am going to assume in some sense there is a “me” that continues from day to day. That guy in the picture is in some real sense the “me” that exists this day, too.
This is exactly the point Thomas Moore wants to make, too. He claims, “When we forget who we have been, we lose a full sense of who we are.” I pondered this sentence only to realize that seeing those pictures prompted me to remember. I put things together again, which is the root meaning of the word, remember. In my case I had not forgotten the guy in the picture and all the other people whom I knew in that picture. But they were not in the front of my mind. Importantly though, they were there in my mind. I have not lost my mind, so I have that sense of an enduring “me.”
If someone had asked me about the picture book and the people, I could begin telling stories. I would claim that I remember correctly and that my stories of my time there and the people with whom I worked were accurate, but I can’t prove that. I am forced to admit that my memory is my version of the past. In the case of the picture book, I think I would be basically true to the facts. I have no reason to lie or color the way I would tell the story. But it is my version. Furthermore, I admit that my version of the past---accurate as it is in my mind---is an interpretation.
Saying this prompts me to realize that even my living out in this present moment is an interpretation. Things happen and I label them as good, bad, happy, etc. I am honest enough to recognize that I can have an experience and interpret that as God “speaking” to me. Someone else might think this is bunk and give it another twist. And so I describe myself as spiritual, based on my experiences of the Divine in my life. And so my present description of myself and my historical memory of me are all interpretations---my version.
I am quite easy with this and not worried. What if I am wrong? That is why I live in humility. I might be wrong. My life is lived in faith. I trust my experience and value my interpretation. I am trying today to be at some later point a person in a picture doing some good things helping others live a good life. That is the point of my life. Right now I am doing the best I can.
And some day when it is over and perhaps a memorial service is held for me, I wonder what others’ version of me will be?
I ran across a picture directory of a place I used to work. It was a great position and I loved doing the work and the people. A big part of me did not really want to leave that place, but I felt God was nudging me on. I always hoped I would be obedient and not simply complacent. So with some reluctance, I moved on to another place, which also has been wonderful. Guess I have been lucky.
The photo directory stopped me in my tracks. I quickly thought I would toss it. It was a long time ago. Some of those folks, no doubt, are deceased. The place is both the same and surely not the same. I have virtually no role there anymore---nor should I have a role. But the memories were very real. And the place came alive again in my mind. I could hear voices, see smiles and all the rest. Memories can do that.
I remember well the words of St. Augustine when he quipped in the fifth century that memory is the means by which the past lives---in memory the past is present in our mind. So seeing these photos made the past come to be present---in my mind. No one in the room with me would have noticed any difference. To someone else, I was simply sitting there thumbing through an old book. For them there was literally nothing to remember---to be put back together again.
There were even some pictures of me. I am always slightly amazed to see myself in a picture. Of course, I know what I look like, but I don’t think much about how I look. Indeed, there is still a bit of vanity in my bones, but not too much anymore. I recognize I am both that guy in the pictures and I am no longer that guy in the picture. Am I the same guy? I don’t know and don’t have much interest here to chase that deeper philosophical question.
But it does provoke me to recall something I read some time ago from Thomas Moore. Early in his book, Original Self, Moore tells us “Memory holds us together as individuals and as communities.” (22) I think it is appropriate to say that memory holds us together. Otherwise, we would simply be creatures who live today and that disappears. There is no continuity---no enduring sense of self. I know the Buddhist says the self does not really exist; it is an illusion. Right now, however, it seems real enough, so I am going to assume in some sense there is a “me” that continues from day to day. That guy in the picture is in some real sense the “me” that exists this day, too.
This is exactly the point Thomas Moore wants to make, too. He claims, “When we forget who we have been, we lose a full sense of who we are.” I pondered this sentence only to realize that seeing those pictures prompted me to remember. I put things together again, which is the root meaning of the word, remember. In my case I had not forgotten the guy in the picture and all the other people whom I knew in that picture. But they were not in the front of my mind. Importantly though, they were there in my mind. I have not lost my mind, so I have that sense of an enduring “me.”
If someone had asked me about the picture book and the people, I could begin telling stories. I would claim that I remember correctly and that my stories of my time there and the people with whom I worked were accurate, but I can’t prove that. I am forced to admit that my memory is my version of the past. In the case of the picture book, I think I would be basically true to the facts. I have no reason to lie or color the way I would tell the story. But it is my version. Furthermore, I admit that my version of the past---accurate as it is in my mind---is an interpretation.
Saying this prompts me to realize that even my living out in this present moment is an interpretation. Things happen and I label them as good, bad, happy, etc. I am honest enough to recognize that I can have an experience and interpret that as God “speaking” to me. Someone else might think this is bunk and give it another twist. And so I describe myself as spiritual, based on my experiences of the Divine in my life. And so my present description of myself and my historical memory of me are all interpretations---my version.
I am quite easy with this and not worried. What if I am wrong? That is why I live in humility. I might be wrong. My life is lived in faith. I trust my experience and value my interpretation. I am trying today to be at some later point a person in a picture doing some good things helping others live a good life. That is the point of my life. Right now I am doing the best I can.
And some day when it is over and perhaps a memorial service is held for me, I wonder what others’ version of me will be?
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