Uses of Memory

I AM INCLINED to believe that God's chief purpose in giving us memory is to enable us to go back in time so that if we didn't play those roles right the first time round, we can still have another go at it now. We cannot undo our old mistakes or their consequences any more than we can erase old wounds that we have both suffered and inflicted, but through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imagining our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings.  

The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later. 

- Originally published in Telling Secrets

Unbelief

UNBELIEF IS AS MUCH OF A CHOICE as belief is. What makes it in many ways more appealing is that, whereas to believe in something requires some measure of understanding and effort, not to believe doesn't require much of anything at all.

-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words

Ugliness

WHOEVER THE SUFFERING SERVANT WAS—that mysterious figure whom Isaiah saw as destined somehow to save the world by suffering for it, and in terms of whom Jesus apparently saw himself—we know that his appearance was "marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the sons of men" (Isaiah 52:14). "He had no comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him," Isaiah continues, and presumably that was a large part of why "he was despised and rejected by men" (Isaiah 53:2b-3a).

You think of the grossly overweight woman struggling to get through the turnstile at the county fair, the acne-scarred teenager at the high-school prom, the skeletal AIDS victim sitting on the New York sidewalk with a Styrofoam begging cup between his ankles. They too, like the Servant, are men and women "of sorrow and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3b).

Who knows to what extent their ugliness has led them too to be despised and rejected and to despise and reject themselves? Who knows whether their acquaintance with grief will open their hearts to the grieving of others or whether it will turn their hearts to stone? But for the sake of the one who bore it before they did, we are to honor them for the sanctity of their burden. For his sake, we are called to see their terrible beauty.

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words 

Ubiquity

EVERY AUTOMOBILE BEARS on its license plate a number that represents the number of years that have elapsed since the birth of Christ. This is a powerful symbol of the ubiquity of God and the indifference of the human race.

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words

Truth

WHEN JESUS SAYS that he has come to bear witness to the truth, Pilate asks, "What is truth?" (John 18:38). Contrary to the traditional view that his question is cynical, it is possible that he asks it with a lump in his throat. Instead of truth, Pilate has only expedience. His decision to throw Jesus to the wolves is expedient. Pilate views humankind as alone in the universe with nothing but its own courage and ingenuity to see it through. That is enough to choke up anybody.

Pilate asks "What is truth?" and for years there have been politicians, scientists, theologians, philosophers, poets, and so on to tell him. The sound they make is like the sound of crickets chirping.

Jesus doesn't answer Pilate's question. He just stands there. Stands, and stands there.

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words