I like the phrase and agree with the idea:
Charles Baxter says that we write to make sense of the widowed images in our lives. Widowed images. Startling images. Haunting images. Whatever you want to call what ends up clogged in our imaginative filter. We don’t always know why they’re important, but for whatever reason, our mind won’t release them.
-Benjamin Percy, Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction, p. 41
R. Is thy memory powerful enough to hold all things that thou thinkest out and bidst it to hold? A. Nay, nay; neither mine nor any man’s is so strong that it can hold everything that is committed to it. R. Then commit it to words and write it down.
-From Soliloquies by St. Augustine
Isaac Watts recommends a similar practice in his great book, Logic (this was the quote that inspired me to start this blog):
In order to preserve your treasure of ideas and the knowledge you have gained, pursue these advices, especially in your younger years: – 1. Recollect every day the things you have seen, or heard, or read…2. Talk over the things which you have seen, heard or learned, with some proper acquaintance…3. Commit to writing some of the most considerable improvements [i.e. applications] which you daily make, at least such hints as may well recall them again to your mind, when perhaps they are vanished and lost (1847 edition, pp. 72-73).
If you’re not writing down your thoughts, and the thoughts of others that you are studying, you are overestimating the power of your memory.
I’m intrigued by the concept of memory (see HERE, HERE, and HERE). After the semester is over I may post the blistering essay I actually turned in on this subject, but for now one observation will suffice:
My psychology textbook virtually denies the existence of the memory (pp. 342-343). ‘Memory’ is not quantifiable. We have yet to scientifically locate it in the brain despite various efforts and theories. Therefore it cannot scientifically be said to have real existence. What we call memory, the textbook contends, is best expressed as behavior adaptation based on experience.
The only question is, How am I supposed to remember all that?
I’ve been attempting (albeit superficially) to work out a biblical doctrine of memory over the past couple months. I wrote about it HERE and HERE. This post was not intended initially to deal with that subject per se, but after some reflection I realized it is relevant to the series.
I remember preaching a sermon on Nebuchadnezzar’s words in Daniel 4:2 and his personal testimony which follows. I argued for the importance of the testimony of believers. It is good to declare the works that God has done for you – that was my theme. Near the end I mentioned the fact that some commentators, and Christians in general, look down on a man like Nebuchadnezzar. He was prideful, power-hungry, and fickle. He had faults. He had sins. But he had experienced grace. Therefore he was not ashamed to bear testimony to the work of God to the entire world – in writing, so that he, and all others, for centuries, might remember. His testimony still stands. ‘Don’t you dare,’ I said, ‘Think badly of Nebuchadnezzar if you are afraid to bear witness in the way that he did.’
I reflected on my own testimony tonight as our family read the end of the Gospel of Matthew. As he called upon his disciples to make disciples, he was calling them to be his witnesses. Certainly there was a peculiarity – that is, a distinct type of witness that only the Apostles could offer – but, nonetheless, we are witnesses still.
I began to share some of my own testimony with my family. I’ve done this before. My wife knows the story well, she was there for a good portion of it, and is still here to see God’s continuing work in my life. But my daughters need to hear it. They need to know that their daddy wasn’t always a preacher – indeed, that he wasn’t always a Christian.
Christ’s call came to me when I was 19. Next month (October 2012) will mark twelve years from that life changing encounter. I knew nothing of him. I had seen a picture of him (i.e. that was supposed to be of him) on my grandmother’s guest room wall. That picture always scared me. I thought it looked kind of creepy. I had hardly ever been to church, and the few times I had been were before I was 5 or 6, which meant I couldn’t even remember them. My dad was a professing agnostic and my mom, well, I’m really not sure what she was. I’m still not sure.
For 19 and a half years of my life, no one ever told me about Jesus. Not even my Christian grandparents.
My grandmother was a godly woman, but she never shared the good news with me. She did, however, in October of 2000, do something. She encouraged me to start reading the Bible. I’m eternally grateful to her for that, and will praise her in the gates. She was ill. She didn’t have much longer left to live, and I think she knew it, though I was to naive at the time to realize it. I had had a really bad year. I flunked out of my first year of college – something that still haunts me. I was a mess. My life was a big wisp. You could have called me willow. But I wasn’t wise enough to realize how screwed up I was both emotionally and spiritually (not that I’m necessarily separating the two).
I was still coping with my parents’ divorce. I didn’t realize it at the time. I was too busy. I thought I was just living, moving forward. But years later I still haven’t fully dealt with the family issues I had as a child and young man. I was still coping with failed high school relationships and my utter failure in my first year of college (which I had partied away). But all these things seemed like things simply to be pushed out of my mind, and so I filled up my mind with all kinds of mess. The last thing I was looking for was Jesus.
But I started reading the Bible – and there he was, in all his glory.
I was like the Ethiopian Eunuch. I was reading, but I had no one to explain to me what I was reading. I remember early on thinking that Adam and Eve must have been blind when they were created, because they couldn’t see that they were naked. Still, I kept reading. I read the Bible cover to cover in a few months. I didn’t understand it well, but with my reading and the help of a few television preachers I realized that I needed Jesus in my life badly.
I started going to church with my grandmother. A friend started going with me, and that encouraged me. Behind the scenes she had asked him, essentially as her dying wish, that he do whatever he could to keep me in church. He didn’t have to do anything. Long since he has gone out of the picture I still can’t wait for Sunday morning. Virtually every Sunday morning feels like a resurrection to me – it’s always like starting all over, again and again, like the covenant is being renewed – the covenant of grace that is.
My (now) wife then came into the picture. She was/is a Christian. She was so much more mature than me it was pretty ridiculous. She has been the greatest influence on me for Christ bar none. We started alternating Sundays going to her home church, which was Baptist, and the church I had been attending, which was Church of God. Though I had been attending a Pentecostal church, I never felt that I fit in very well. I don’t want to sling stones in this glass house, so I’ll say that the positive thing I took from that church was the music. I’ll refer to this again in a moment.
My then future wife was quiet most of the time, setting an example. But she would call me out on things when she needed to. I vividly remember an instance when we were dating that I told her I believed a Christian could lose his salvation. ‘If I killed someone and then died without repenting, of course I think I would lose my salvation.’ She was quick to respond, ‘But doesn’t that mean that salvation is of works?’ I had read all of Paul, and I immediately knew she was right. I admitted that I was wrong on the spot. I often advise young men to seek a mate who is more mature than they are. Girls typically mature a bit more quickly (though things they are a changin’ these days), so, from my own experience I say, ‘the best thing you could do is find a young woman who is more mature than you, especially spiritually. You need someone to raise the bar for you and challenge you to grow if you’re going to lead.’ It makes me marvel that my wife, who was more mature than me, was willing to submit to me as her leader. It forced me to step up, and it was good for me – you know, the whole, ‘You make me want to be a better man’ – that was truly the case, and still is.
I started reading a book called The Holiness of God, by R.C. Sproul, at the recommendation of my pastor, and it all started to make sense. I get it – this is why I need Jesus. God is really, really holy and I’m really, really not. Jesus died so that his holiness could be counted as mine. I’m unworthy, be he is gracious – it’s all of grace. This was about a year into the process. I was already a Christian, but the foundation was beginning to solidify.
I started telling everybody I could about Jesus. At work I was talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses. At school I was talking to Atheists and more Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was even starting to talk to my family about Jesus. They weren’t believers, but they were never hostile to me, and I’m thankful for that. They saw anything that would improve my life morally and emotionally as a good thing, regardless of whether or not it was true.
My ‘telling people about Jesus’ was noticed by a lot of people, one of whom was my pastor at the time. He encouraged me to get in a pulpit. I wanted to preach and so I eagerly accepted the invite. I don’t think I’ve ever turned down an offer to preach since (at least not that I can remember). For some preaching is for those who want to exposit Scripture, teach the Bible, etc. I love to do those things. And I think all good preachers will do those things. But from the beginning all I wanted to to was tell people about Jesus. Years later, 100 hours of seminary courses later, heaps of study later, I still think that’s the essence of Christian ministry. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I’m being simplistic, but above all else, we have a gospel to proclaim.
Most of the time, though it should be all of the time, I still feel that gospel is all that I have. What if I lost my wife? What if I lost my children? What would I have? Only the gospel, and it tells me that tombstones are resurrection markers.
As that great saint Polycarp stood trial before being martyred, he said, ‘Eighty-six years I have served the Lord. He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who has saved me?’ I live without fear of major persecution. I’m no martyr. But I can proclaim with a clear conscience, twelve years I have served the Lord and he has done me no wrong.’ I have found my life to be a struggle and a joy. I have found it to be seriously happy. And I have found his mercies to be new every morning. His faithfulness is great. My only prayer is that I may continue with all my heart to follow Jesus Christ, as a disciple, till I breathe my last, and then keep following him into eternity.
One of the early songs I heard as a Christian has this lyric: ‘Where would I be? You only know. I’m glad you see through eyes of love. A hopeless case, an empty place, if not for grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. I once was lost, but now I’m found. A hopeless case, an empty place, if not for grace.’ That sums it up pretty well for me.
The Apostle writes,
People ask me from time to time where my passion for preaching and evangelism comes from. That’s not easy to answer. I have to say ‘from the work and calling of God.’ But the way God has chosen to work in me is largely through memory. I remember. I remember those 19 and a half years of my life in which I was without hope, without God in the world, a stranger to the covenants of promise. May God grant me the grace to always remember, and the boldness to tell people of the wondrous works of God in Christ Jesus.
You will doubtless tell your family, friends, coworkers, etc stories about your past. Will you neglect the most important story of all – the intersection of God’s sovereign work of salvation and your little life? Tell the story. I think back to myself as a teenager. Where were all the Christians? There they were in my school. There they were in my work. And they were silent. Because they were silent I will not be silent. I needed someone to speak.
Another song I learned back then says, ‘If you could see where Jesus brought me from, to where I am today, then you would know the reason why I love him so.’ That’s it. I can’t convey it in a post. But if you could only see… I cannot convey to you the grace that he has extended to me, the love that he has shown to me. And I’m not special. This grace and love is on the table for anyone who calls upon him.
Just ask, I’d be glad to tell you much more. I remember.
In Exodus 3 we encounter one of the most astounding stories in all the Bible. Here God appears to Moses in the burning bush, he announces his intention to deliver Israel from the oppressive hand of Pharaoh, and he declares the name by which he is to be known by his people – ‘I Am Who I Am.’
In building upon a biblical theology of memory, which I began HERE, this text is very helpful. The key phrase here is in v. 15. This name, which God has revealed to Moses, is not only the name by which he is called, but the name by which he is to be remembered. The name ‘I Am Who I Am’ is to be God’s memorial. The NASB brings out the idea of the Hebrew well in its translation, ‘This is my memorial-name to all generations.’
We touched upon the fact in the previous post that God’s people were often commanded, and often chose of their own will, to set up various types of memorials ranging from Jacob’s rock at Bethel (Gen. 28) to the institution of the Passover to Samuel’s dedication of the ‘ebenezer’ in 1 Samuel 7 to Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper, which is to be observed ‘in remembrance’ of him. In each of these cases, physical objects were used to ‘hold’ memories for God’s people. In other words, these physical object would be used as instruments to evoke remembrance from them in the future, to call their minds back to the mighty works of God. The memorial of Exodus 3:15, however, is quite different, in that it is not a physical object. Rather, it is a name – His memorial-name.
Names are mysterious in many ways. They are non-physical, yet a name may, in some sense, carry the identity of a person. If you ask me who who I am, I will answer first with my name. My name is me. My name is, in some respect, my identity. It’s no wonder then that in so many cultures and times throughout recorded history names have carried such weight. It is also no wonder, then, that God has been in the business of changing people’s names since the time of Abram. Gd announces to Abram (Father) that on account of His promises to him his name will be Abraham (Great Father) (As I’ve heard it put, he went from being Daddy to being Big-Daddy). The name expressed the identity and purpose of the man and thus carried a great importance.
Consider the previous paragraph an aside. The important issue here is that names carry memories. Names are written on tomb stones. It is a common practice of my family to walk through a nearby cemetery and read such names. We know nothing of these departed ones, but to those who knew them, loved them, the names alone stand as a memorial, holding memories that flood back at the mere recognition of the name. Names are memorials, and memorials carry memories – especially after we are cut off from the one who bore the name.
It would be an interesting experiment, and you might want to try it, to simply speak the names of family members, and note the memories that come to mind. They will all have one thing in common – they are memories of the past. And as such, they will evoke emotion – either negative or positive. Old resentments will come to mind. Past wrongs and hurts will be evoked. Or perhaps joyful memories of fun times, laughter, and love will return. Yet, as I argued previously, even the best memories will prove to be melancholy longings for the past.
All memories are longings for the present in some sense. In the negative cases, we often wish to return to the past to right wrongs, to act in hindsight. In the positive cases we wish to return to the past to experience it anew. In both cases we are longing that the past were the present.
And, with this being the case, God comes to us and says, ‘I AM’ – this is my memorial-name. When you remember me, I am not the past. I am not something that can be changed, nor am I something that you can experience as you once did. I am NOW, and will be. Was he the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Certainly. But the important thing about God’s past relationships with his covenant-people is that he still is. Remember him, but remember him in such a way that you never forget that he is in the present: ‘Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not, as thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. Great is thy faithfulness.’
God’s faithfulness implies that he is like a rock (or rather a rock is like him). He is unmoving, fixed, steady. We change with the seasons, but with him ‘there is no shadow of turning.’ Through his memorial-name, ‘I AM,’ he declares this to us in the most intimate of ways.
If I want you to know me I tell you my name. God wants you to know him, so he tells you his. Don’t take that lightly. And beyond revealing his covenantal name, he reveals himself in the flesh in Jesus Christ, whom the New Testament declares to be ‘I AM’ in the flesh – the first and the last, the beginning and the end, who was and is and is to come, the alpha and the omega.
Think of the names of those whom you have lost. Let the memories flood back. And then remember the memorial-name of God. Since God is the eternal Now, since God IS period, he is not the God of the dead but of the living. So live.
Jesus understood Exodus 3 better than anyone:
Cling to that memorial-name, run to it:
I enjoy, and often use, the resources at Mars Hill Audio (no relation to Mars Hill Church). I have written about the impact of their Audio Report on the life and thought of Michael Polanyi, especially his theory of Tacit Knowledge. Their Audio Report on courtship, dating, and marriage (see Audio Report link above) has also proved extremely helpful to me in conversations with young adults.
One of the more thought-provoking items I have purchased from Mars Hill was a collection of essays on the theme(s) of Community, Place and Memory. I am in the process of trying to work out a biblical theology of ‘memory,’ and a particular essay in this collection was quite helpful. The essay is by Gina Bria, and is titled, A Theology of Things. Her thesis is as follows:
Experiences and memories are composed of the place and things which populate them. Yet, in our hast to spiritualize experience, we are apt to lose these very memories by the loss of our sensual touchstones. The things that surround us have a theological power to lead us to recollection, thereby deepening our apprehension of the spiritual.
The author points out the mysterious fact that our memories are often ‘contained’ in objects or senses. I suppose everyone can relate to this fact. For me, the smell of freshly cut grass brings me back to football two-a-days and the sight of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brings childhood memories of Saturday mornings and Christmas presents into my mind. Pictures do much the same thing. This is why they say a picture is worth a thousand words – a picture can evoke so many specific memories that might have remained dormant had the picture not been seen. Jamey Johnson’s song, In Color, comes to mind as an example of how this process rings true.
The author also cites the strange phenomenon that nursing home residents often rapidly lose their memory, even when no medically documentable change has happened to their brains. The issue is not usually that they have suddenly become senile. Rather, the issue is often that they have been removed from the objects which ‘hold’ many of their memories. Take the object away, the memory disappears.
Bria then engages an interesting line of thought about the Lord’s Supper. This is where the rubber meets the road theologically. And this is where I want to linger. But first, let me begin with an important Old Testament text on the subject of memory:
1 Samuel 7:12 ¶ Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Till now the LORD has helped us.’
The Israelites were living in fear of the Philistines. God came to their aid and provided deliverance and victory. Samuel wants to memorialize this event for future reference to God’s mighty act of deliverance. He raises up a memorial stone, a stone of remembrance (i.e. Ebenezer). Many other landmarks and acts are recorded in the OT as ‘reminders’ of God’s mighty acts. Jacob’s monument at Bethel comes to mind, as well as the institution of the Passover. These memorials were meant to ‘hold’ the memories of God’s revealing of himself and delivering his people.
Yet these monuments and rituals were not merely ‘memorials’ in the cold sense that we often use the term. They were not tombstones. They were not marking the end. They were marking the beginning.
The case is much the same in the Lord’s Supper. Jesus says that we are to eat and drink ‘in remembrance’ of Him. The Greek term anamnesis (‘remembrance’ or ‘reminder’) has been the subject of much debate, but it would be difficult not to conclude that this term entails remembering something with a view to the present. That is, the Lord’s Supper is not like a tombstone. We don’t simply eat and drink to remember a death. Rather, we eat and drink to remember the present ramifications of that death – namely, eternal life in the presence of the resurrected Christ.
Bria makes a profound observation in her essay (which I will paraphrase): The issue in ‘this is my body’ is not simply the age-old debate of Transubstantiation vs. Consubstantiation vs. Memorial vs. Real-Spiritual-Presence. Rather, the issue is this: ‘Is Christ present in the world at all?’ Communion is meant to point us to the ongoing power and presence of Christ now – not in the elements themselves, but in reality in general.
Consider this fact: our happiest memories are not happy. Rather, they are melancholy. They are like C.S. Lewis’ ‘Joy’ – they are a melancholy longing to enter into a certain state. Happy memories are those memories that we wish we could reenter, or summon up, in the present. Memories remind us that we are temporal, finite, and mortal. The fact that the past is always ‘the good old days’ points us to the reality that the present is never as we would have it be.
Our kids grow up. Our parents die. Loves are lost. And, a second reference to country music, we ask, ‘Are the good times really over for good?’
Memorials, rituals, pictures, and memories in general, in their melancholiness, are meant to point us to a memory that is never truly a memory – an eternal Now. The risen Lord, Jesus Christ, is our Ebenezer, our Passover, our Communion. He is the ever-present Now.
He is the LORD – I am what I am, I will be what I will be.
He ‘was and is and is to come,’ the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.
He is the memory that is always present in the present.
Grown up kids, lost loves, tombstones, faded memories, all point us to One who is Now, and will be. In Christ the family never parts, for there is a communion of the saints. In Christ lost love is never lost, for life is eternal. In Christ tombstones are markers for resurrections sites.
In Christ, memories have not only present power, but present reality. Ebenezer – ‘hither by thy help I’m come’ – extends to ‘his grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.’ Beware of nostalgia. Memories are not meant to terminate in the past. Those longings are meant to point us to the only One who can fulfill those longings in the present and future – they are meant to point us to the One who changes not. So don’t spurn your memories, but don’t idealize, or idolize, them either. Rather worship the One to whom all true longing points.
