Reflection This Week
FORGETTING TO REMEMBER
The tsunami in the
Far East, hurricane Katrina in our own Deep South, even the
devastating fires in Southern California are now almost, if not
truly, lost in our personal and collective memories. When they
occurred, we were inundated, no pun intended, with on-the-scene news
reports by the network anchors, so horrendous was the destruction to
property and the loss of life that the scenes were almost seared
into our minds and hearts. No more.
We have moved on
while those who were the victims of these natural disasters still
have to deal with the aftermath, and for the rest of their lives.
While the memory of what happened to them and their loved ones
eventually fades into the background as they pick up the pieces of
their lives and move on, they will never be the same. Their lives
were and are changed forever. They will never, ever forget what
happened and they will never, ever be the same.
It is always
easier to move on when confronted with incidents like these when one
has not been the victim. We do what little we can do – pray, send
money, perhaps even travel to those areas laid waste by Mother
Nature and lend a hand. Then we get back to life, our life, as
quickly as we can. We have to. Life goes on and it will go one
whether we like it or not. We know that if we allow our own lives to
be consumed by what has happened elsewhere in the world, if we do
not move on, sooner or later there will be those who will begin to
be concerned by what has happened to us.
Moving on for
both the victim of some disaster and for those who care does not
mean that we forget to remember what happened. There are always
lessons to be learned from anything and everything that happens to
us and happens to others even if those others are thousands of miles
away and are nameless to a person. What have we, both individually
and as a society, learned from these events? Have they made a
difference in our lives, the way we think, the way we act, even in
our faith?
When we fail to
learn those lessons or we forget to remember what we did learn, we
are doomed to repeat them and/or become a victim ourselves some day.
These tragic events are truly living parables: somewhere in each one
of them is a truth we need to remember again, confront again.
Unfortunately we tend to treat most parables the way we do a “great”
sermon, as in, “That was a great sermon, Bill. Thanks.” Then we go
home and by Tuesday afternoon forget what the sermon was all about –
the preacher being included in this forgetfulness.
Yes, we can be
overwhelmed by all those parables we encounter each day, whether
close to home, across the continent or on the other side of the
world. There is only so much the mind can absorb, only so much that
the heart can deal with, only so much within us to make some kind of
response. The temptation is to put down the paper, turn off the
news, even close our eyes. And we do, even if reluctantly.
Life is not only
difficult, it is complicated and even more so the faster
communication becomes. How do we respond to events so far away when
we already have more than enough on our own plates? How do we
reflect on this parable when there are three others waiting in line
for us to think about? Why do we need to remember what we would
really like to forget?
There are no
easy answers. That truth is difficult enough to deal with. It only
becomes worse when we forget to remember what we once learned from
the mistakes and misfortunes both of others and our own, because
that is when we will find ourselves repeating those mistakes and
being the victim of similar misfortunes. WJP
