memory and christ
jesus, toni morrison, and the fragility of remembering
Over the few months we’ve lived in Milwaukee, Emily has slowly befriended one of our neighbors across the street. She is a widow, likely in her late 80s, and is often accompanied by her daughter, who helps her with tasks around the house and keeps her company on their front porch where they strike up conversations with anyone passing by.
This weekend, Emily tells me, she ran into our neighbor while kids moved from door to door to collect candy. She was greeted with a familiar warm smile but was not expecting what came next: “Hi there! Are you new to the neighborhood? Do you live in this house?”
She didn’t remember.
I am not the first to be confounded by the idea of memory and the loss of it. Children and grandchildren spend their lives caring for relatives who suffer from Alzheimer's. Friends come alongside friends after traumatic accidents where memory is erased. Memory shapes our lives.
Emily’s encounter reminded me how fragile our memories are.
Our interactions with others, our recollection of the past, our ability to store words and concepts—all of this is stored in a mass in each of our skulls that we call a “brain.” Somehow, by the firing of electric currents, we remember things. These memories contain words and images and emotions. Our bodies respond to these memories—sometimes viscerally.
Every so often, a video will go viral of a person who has lost their memory but can listen to their favorite jazz album and remembers every word, or sit at a piano and play their favorite song, or begin speaking in a language from their childhood.
Parts of us, when remembered over and over again, are stored deeper than the electric synapses.
Perhaps this is why God is constantly calling us to remember.
When Israel is led out of Egypt, God commands: Take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Deut. 6:12)
The Psalmist promises: I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will remember your wonders of old. (Psalm 77:11)
Jesus, at the table with his disciples the night before his death, calls them to remember. “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me..And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20-21). In 1 Corinthians, Jesus adds “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (11:25-26)
The Eucharist, as many liturgical theologians have acknowledged, is a practice of collectively re-membering the body of Christ. What has been broken apart, we collectively bring back together. We participate, through our union with Christ, in this sacrament as an act tangible act of memory.
By God’s grace, we don’t remember alone. Jesus says “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
Miroslav Volf explains that there’s a pragmatics of memory. “We always do something with our remembering.”
In an essay titled “The Site of Memory,” Toni Morrison argues what we do with memory is imagine. “The act of imagination is bound up with memory.” She likens memory to floods of the Mississippi River. This, she explains, is a practice of remembering—“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”
This is the work of memory at a soul level. It crafts and rightly orients our imaginations even when our minds slow and bodies fail. Our memories may be fragile, but our God is everlasting. Therefore, even when the ability to remember fades, we await the resurrection of our souls when all will be made new.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken
…
All flesh is grass;
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers; the flower fades,
[[when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers; the flower fades,]]
but the word of our God will stand forever.
Isaiah 40
Reading:
“Simran Jeet Singh’s Reflections and Remarks from ‘Religion and Society: The First Decade’” (The Aspen Institute)
Liberty and justice for all? Not yet. But maybe tomorrow, if we work together, if we’re intentional. That’s why I’m so grateful to be in this room with you all today. This work doesn’t happen by accident and it doesn’t happen alone. It’s our journey together.
The Scandal of Holiness, Jessica Hooten Wilson (Brazos Press, 2022)
A Time To Build, Yuval Levin (Basic Books, 2020)
Watching:
The Patient (Hulu)
Mo (Netflix)
White Lotus - Season 2 (HBO)