Good memories help
"Stop and smell the roses”, “Find the one thing that
matters”, “Talk with someone you can trust”. This is just some
of the advice given to cope with stressed-out living.
The cynical and/or macho part of each of us tends to dismiss
such words and, in so doing, a needed goodness can be lost.
I have increasingly found that, when the pressures build,
memories help me cope. Not all of our memories are good. But the truly good
ones can help us face up and get us beyond the bad.
The day after my sister’s wedding some years ago, my dad
told me that he and Mum and my oldest brother were putting their farms on the
market. That, to me, was devastating news: going home on annual leave to them
and the farm was my haven, my refreshing place that enabled me to return to the
constant demands of parish life. As I worked, relaxed and reflected on doing
this with Gramps and that with Mum and Dad, I was able to centre myself again.
For months, I grieved deeply over Dad’s news of selling
up, until I remembered that I always carried the farm with me.
Perhaps it’s just me, but, over the years, I’ve
found that, whether I think about my upbringing or my profession, the memories
that are clearest for me are the good ones. It’s not that the bad is
forgotten so much as the bad keeps losing its ability to determine who I am as
I recall the good. This happens through God having blessed me with my immediate
and wider family and a network of friends who make it easier to keep making
good memories together.
And that’s the greatness of good recall: it exceeds a
mere sense of security, acceptance, being known, or of joy that is more than
mere happiness. I learn with the rest of humanity that my place in life is as
one who is also to create good memories – with my family, friends,
workmates and strangers. Is that not part of the common wisdom: Do to others as
you would have them do to you?
That’s why the Bible urges us to give up parasitical
living and love our neighbours as ourselves (Matthew 22:39), to see ourselves
as God’s “masks”, instruments by which He brings goodness to
others. A prime example of this is law enforcement, which exists surely for the
common good.
Now, all I’ve expressed could sound like nonsense in our
task-oriented world – until we give it a decent go. Then, somewhere here,
we remember we are people, meant for life and not mere existence. Somewhere
here, work ceases to be just a job and becomes a needed calling. Tasks become
opportunities to contribute. Our houses become refreshing homes.
Sure, certain situations and people will make it hard, but
just as surely they don’t get to determine who we are in ourselves and how
we’ll be.
Good memories might be only part of what makes us tick, but
they help form us rightly and well for how we’ll approach all we meet each
day.
