What to remember, what to forget

Yesterday I participated in a lovely family ritual. Hal and I drove to the small town of Monmouth, Oregon to share with our granddaughter the adventure of moving into her university dorm room as a freshman at Western Oregon University. Her parents, younger brother, and the other set of grandparents made up our group.

We parked outside the large dorm and all of us helped transport boxes up to the fifth floor. Hal and I were allowed to only carry pillows, while the rest of the stuff was heaped onto a cart. Paige began putting stuff away and decorating her room and we sort of helped, mostly cheered her on. We all met her roommate, then went out for a special meal together, and said our goodbyes. She was glowing with excitement and I know having us all there for this rite of passage made her feel loved.

It all got me remembering my own rite of passage. My father had just gotten a new job and my mother was disabled, so they couldn’t accompany me from central California up to Newberg, Oregon. They put me and my two suitcases on a Greyhound bus and waved goodbye. I remember nervously changing buses in Portland, then sitting in the front seat of the local bus to Newberg, worried about finding the place to get off. I remember walking with my two suitcases the two blocks to the campus. I was frightened and alone, but some friendly upper-classmen welcomed me, and somehow it all worked out. Memories.

At this stage of life memories become important and we tend to spend time bringing them up. Remembering. And forgetting. The two go together. There are memories we cherish, and there are memories we wish we could forget. And, of course, there are countless things we forget that we wish we could remember—names, appointments, and where we put those dumb glasses.

Isaiah the prophet wrote some fascinating words on this subject. Well, his words might be more confusing than fascinating, but I’ve been working my way through the apparent contradictions. The subject is “the former things.” The past and our memories of it.

Isaiah writes to the Israelite people at a traumatic time in their history, telling them to “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please’” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Isaiah was calling people to a collective memory of all the ways God had worked among them in their past. He was admonishing them to remember the promises, reconnect with what they understood, through the prophets, of God’s purposes in history, of the glorious future he was preparing for them.

The spiritual discipline of remembering had long been a practice of the people of God. God had them build altars at places of military victories or where various miracles had taken place, such as the crossing of the Jordan River. Even their religious festivals were exercises in remembrance: the Passover Feast that celebrated deliverance from slavery in Egypt or the raucous feast of Purim, remembering God’s deliverance from genocide as recounted in the book of Esther. Remember, says the Lord.

But around the same time Isaiah intoned his Remember! speech, he gave another prophetic order, telling the people to “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

It seems the prophet was encouraging the people to look beyond their past failures in following God and the consequent years of conquest, punishment, and captivity. In the wasted wilderness of their sufferings, God in his mercy would provide springs of living water and a way through to a better future. Something new. Something unimagined.

We’re not the ancient Israelites and we aren’t facing imminent conquest and deportation to Assyria or Babylonia (although one could draw parallels—but I won’t do that here). We’re God’s children living in the 21^st Century in a land of privilege. More specifically, the “we” this blog addresses are people living in the final stages of life. As elders with a life-time of experiences behind us, a present life that frequently challenges us, and a future that’s coming sooner than we want, remembering and forgetting are major mental activities. Appropriately so.

So, what’s it to be, Isaiah? Are we to remember the former things? Or are we to forget the former things? Is this a one-or-the-other proposition? An either/or choice?

Or is it both/and? I suspect so. Like so many biblical “contradictions,” this might be called a paradox, an integration of two unlike or opposite things. Things like remembering and forgetting. Apparently, we’re to do both.

If so, the questions become What do we remember? and What do we forget? The answer is probably more complex than “remember the good stuff and forget the bad.” Add that to the fact that our memories are not as reliable as we usually think they are. (Just ask a brother or sister what they remember about a certain childhood incident, and note how different their memory is from yours.)

What should be remember? God’s faithfulness, even before we knew his name. I remember being in the hospital at three years old to have my tonsils out. Parents couldn’t stay the night back then. I woke up in the night alone in a strange place. Maybe I cried; I don’t remember that part. What I do remember is this woman with kind eyes who came into the room, said soft things to me, then picked me up and took me all around the hospital, showing me stuff. She stopped in front of the nursery window and we looked at all the babies. Then she carried me back to my room and I fell asleep. The next morning my mother was sitting by my bed. And I got to eat ice cream and Jello and no vegetables at all. That’s a good memory.

There are so many more, all through my life. Big stuff and small kindnesses. People who loved me and strangers who smiled. Hard stuff too. Failures I learned from, mistakes I was forgiven for, the candy I stole from the grocery store for which I later confessed and made restitution. And harder things from which I thought at the time I’d never recover. But I did. Remembering all that is helpful in figuring out why I am who I am today. And how God has always been with me.

What should I forget? “Forgive and forget” I’ve found to be impossible. At least literally. But maybe when we think about past hurts and wounds, forget really means an emotional forgetting, remembering but without pain, bitterness, or tears. In Christian spirituality it’s called “the healing of memories.” Is that how we’re supposed to forget?

Maybe at times we’re called on to forget “the way we’ve always done it.” Maybe churches and denominations need to forget some traditions in order to communicate to people today. Maybe some old doctrinal interpretations need to be let go (forgotten) in the light of continuing revelation. Maybe.

This subject is worth coming back to and reflecting on.

In the meantime, just remember to remember the former things. It's important.

And remember to forget them. God wants to do something new. I like the sound of that.