Memories are forever

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Francis Gonsalves [1]

You forgot my birthday,” complained a friend recently, terribly hurt at my forgetfulness. Neither reasoning nor excuses could heal the hurt I’d caused. Remembering loved ones bring joy and forgetting them — especially on memorable days — hurts. Truly, memory is an indispensible ingredient in building relationships.

Memory moulds identity and injects meaning into life, weaving together all of life’s experiences into a fabric that clothes with love and shields against loneliness. By contrast, loss of memory destroys our humanness. Someone struck by Alzheimer’s disease, for instance, cannot function as a normal human being. One’s world collapses.
Beyond the personal level, we have ways of communitarian remembrance. Memorial meals are wondrous ways of remembering people and celebrating life. Birthday parties, wedding feasts and family get-togethers create cohesion among people. At memorial meals, the act of “remembering together” or “com-memoration” leads to a “re-membering” of ourselves into one another. A synergy of minds and hearts takes place.
Memory has divine dimensions, too, and transports us towards Transcendence. In Hinduism, shruti or the “hearing” and smriti or the “remembering” are great eternal acts that direct action and construct community. The Buddha preached about sammasati or “mindfulness”. Jews and Christians hold that not only must human beings remember God, but God, too, must remember us. God is the great rememberer. At the heart of prayer is the plea: “O God, forget me not!”
The psalmist advises us: “Do not forget all God’s benefits!” (Psalm 103:2). The believer is always called to walk backwards into the future, so to say, remembering God’s goodness in the past so as to be unshakably assured of God’s presence and protection in the future.
Theologian Johann B. Metz speaks of a “memory of the future” which seems strange. Implied here, however, is the dynamism of the human spirit to envision a future pregnant with promise, based on the lived experience of God’s graciousness in the past.
Remembering not only recalls the past or celebrates the present, but also propels us into the future. Greeting a friend on her/his birthday or celebrating a “com-memorial” matrimonial meal with newlyweds gives the message: “You are precious to me; I wish you well for the future!” Consequently, the one celebrating special events feels loved and realises that s/he is not alone in journeying towards a bright tomorrow.
What’s true at the individual level also holds good at the global level. Our memories and commemorations could help us to recall golden pasts and say, “The best is yet to come!” And, apart from, and above, all divides and distinctions, the “memory of the future” could help us all to recognise everyone else as sister or brother so as to live in peace and harmony with all.

Francis Gonsalves is the principal of Vidyajyoti College of Theology, Delhi.