Do not be too quick to heal all of those memories, unless that means also feeling them deeply and taking them all into your salvation history. God calls us to suffer the whole of reality, to remember the good along with the bad. Perhaps that is the course of the journey toward new sight and new hope. Memory creates a readiness for salvation, an emptiness to receive the love and a fullness to enjoy it.
Richard Rohr, from a Sojourners article "The Energy of Promise"
Every since I became a Christian, I have periodically been troubled by memories of things I did or said, or failed to do or say, in the years before. Times when, above all, I was cruel and heartless towards those weaker than myself, or times when, out of cowardice or self-interest, I failed to support or defend those weaker than myself. Other things too - memories of the suffering of others, where I felt helpless to comfort or assist, and memories of my own pain, when it seemed there was no-one I could even talk to, let alone depend upon for help.
Yet recently I've begun to realise that what Rohr is saying here is true. God "calls us to suffer the whole of reality," and by the way the good times are good, and not somehow cancelled out by the bad. Certainly memory does create an emptiness to receive love - for one of the things I remember most about the time before I knew God was the way every crevice of my self-awareness was filled with stuff - self-justification, self-obsession, and a thousand cravings and ambitions that clamoured for attention and nourishment. One of the first things God did was to empty me out - not a comfortable experience at all - till there was an aching hollow at the centre of all that was me, that only he could fill.
Actually that's all too pluperfect: the emptying goes on. It happens again and again, and it is always happening. I think that's what a lot of the Franciscan fascination with simplicity is all about, stopping stuff from falling in and obscuring that hollow that is the need of God, and that cannot be filled - only blocked - by anything other than God.
The grace of Christ is that we can know that dreadful hole within our hearts at the same time as we know that he fills it with his love, his presence, with his Spirit who is known as Comforter, and yet who is at the same time wind and fire. His love is our home, our resting place, our wholeness at long last: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love." (John 15.9)
5 comments:
Thanks, Mike. You and Rohr have given me the support I need.
Brilliant.
Mike, this echoes so much of my own experience - and I am quite sure, that of others. Thank you so much for it; it is timely, and comforting.
The kind of memories you describe, Mike - I think they are important for our self-knowledge, and they help us grow in humility and compassion.
wow. a humble and compassionate post. though, in my case, I don't think my regrets are limited to things I did before I was a Christian.
Thank you, people...
Diane, I didn't mean all my regrets were "limited to things I did before I was a Christian" - only the worst ones - see my penultimate paragraph!
You're so right about their importance, Gabrielle. That must be what Rohr is getting at when he says not to be too quick to try and heal one's memories. They are important not only for our own development, I think, but for our ability to deal compassionately with others who may be caught in the same thickets. We can never stand around and look down on "sinners" like the Pharisee looked down on the tax collector in Luke 18 so long as we remember what we have been forgiven ourselves!
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