Memory's Wardrobe

Do you sometimes laze in your armchair contemplating the faces and places of long ago?  Do you hanker for those ‘good old days’ when the expression ‘jobs for life’ summed up the experience of a large proportion of the population, and no one had heard of Brexit? ... indeed, some of us delight in the recollection of times when the EU, or its forerunners the Common Market or the European Economic Community, had not come over our horizon!

Jobs, interests and preferences change over the years for all of us and, as life has handed us on from one age to the next, we have built up a history of employers, clubs and organisations that we have joined and left.  We have met and parted company with a variety of friends and acquaintances, maintaining contact with a treasured few, and losing touch with – even completely forgetting – many more.

Most of us are left with a store of memories from several different situations; while the detail may be lost in the passage of time, some of that plethora of faces and personalities will linger ... even if we can no longer fit a name to the face!  Almost certainly we can learn from these pictures of the past, for quite possibly there will be parallels with our present life and sometimes we can link these together to advantage.

It’s not just our working or social lives which are enriched by past experience.  The same is true of our spiritual lives, too.  I was recently asked to recall key people along my journey to faith, who brought home to me the truth of the Gospel.  I came up with three people, all priests, each with two significant claims to answer that question.  The first conveyed an almost aggressive boldness, encouraging me to go out and achieve; he also admonished me when I had opened myself to a potentially scandalous accusation.  The second priest gave me much advice and teaching in my Reader ministry ... and wisely received and reacted to my confession a few years later when I no longer felt worthy of continuing in that role.  The third one became a friend, although aware of most, if not all, of my shadowy secrets, and was not averse to acknowledge some of his own weaknesses and difficulties.

Timothy had such a formative character in the apostle Paul, who gave valuable advice to the young minister in his letters to him that have come down to us in our Bible.  In particular, he reminded him of the way his mother and grandmother had taught him the scriptures (2Tim. 1:5), and of their vital part as the foundation for all of his ministry (2Tim. 3:14-4:5).  We would do well to heed Paul’s words and consider how relevant they are in our lives.

We don’t pass through any experience without learning from it: even the disasters of life, and our memories store each experience away for the future.  If we are invited to a party, we open the wardrobe doors, wondering what to wear; when we find ourselves in a new situation, it is good to be able to open the door of memory and let some experience of the past emerge, or recognise a verse from scripture as it comes to mind.  As we relate this to our present circumstances, perhaps we will find guidance in coping with a new experience.  The present will never mirror the past exactly, but it’s surprising how often there is a link that will help us if we have the patience to see it.