Years ago in spiritual direction, an Opus Dei priest told me to ask Jesus to “Teach us to awaken our memories with you.” It was an exercise to assist in those moments when the memories come in like a phantom pain, like an old injury one forgets they have until they move just a little differently and the body reminds them. You know when you forget you have a bruise until something bumps it or someone pokes it. Some memories are like that.
It’s a grace-filled exercise to allow those memories to be awaked with the Lord. It is like taking a tour of your interior life and instead of looking for where the pain is stored, you look for where Jesus is.
Is and not was–for our Lord is outside of time.
Maybe in the moment I first walked through that place I couldn’t see Jesus, but more often than not he is hiding in plain sight. He’s there buffering me from heavy blows, comforting me through pain, healing me before I knew I needed healing. At times I can see him sitting at the table with me drinking our morning coffee. I don’t know, but I think he keeps my coffee hot a little longer than is customary. He’s often crying with me, through me. And the tears that originally tasted so bitter, when awakened with Jesus have a sweetness I can not remember in the first experience.
‘Tis Autum
Autumn is full of memories that have a sepia tone. I gave birth to two babies in Autumn. I also had a near death encounter in Autumn and received Extreme Unction. I’ve fought in court for the safety of my children against their own father in Autumn. I also fell deeply in love the same Autumn.
I love September for how it sneaks up on me. It’s so unpretentious. I’m always clinging to summer, unwilling to say goodbye to the warmth of the sun. Summer has high expectations, doesn’t it? People always ask, “How was your summer?” but rarely “How was your Fall?” So distracted by the need to fill up summer with experiences, by the time I am ready for Fall it’s already covered in first frosts and crunchy leaves. The season begs me to settle down, slow down, sit down. It’s time for listening.
For what, you may ask?
I can’t tell you. But I know it when I hear it.
Sometimes its in the breeze, sometimes in the dreams. I might hear it when my boots find the crunchiest leaves, or maybe when the tea-kettle whistles. For sure I can hear it in my husband’s breathing beside me in bed. And especially when the thurible clanks against its tether during Divine Liturgy.
This is the season for quiet wonder.
Its the season to remember, to have our memories awakened.
Show me where you are, Lord, when I was a little girl and very frightened and consumed with anxiety.
Show me where you are Lord, when I rocked my babies quietly in the night and felt rather alone.
Show me where you are Lord, when I grieved so hard the future that would never be.
Show me where you are Lord, when I didn’t know if I was going to live to see my children grown.
Show me where you are Lord, when I had to find the courage to fight the injustice in my own home.
Show me where you are Lord, when I was falling deeply in love. (Actually, this one is pretty easy to awaken.)
Eden
In the ancient text called “The Book of the Cave of Treasures” we read about some of the in-between details from the book of Genesis and how they tie into the Early Church. In the telling of how God created Adam it says that Adam, “…rose at full length and stood upright in the centre of the earth, he planted his two feet on that spot whereon was set up the Cross of our Redeemer; for Adam was created in Jerusalem.”
This got me to pondering how God heals memories in the same place you created them–that is, in your soul. If Christ was crucified and accomplished our redemption in the exact place that Adam was created, he can also go to the places within us that are still tender and weave into our memories threads of tremendous beauty and grace.
While we usually think of Eden as the place of original sin, the ancient text says that “Eden is the Holy Church, and the Church is the compassion of God.” It goes on to say that God, knowing that Satan had devised against man, preemptively placed Adam in the “bosom of his compassion, even as the blessed David singeth concerning Him in the Psalm, saying, ‘Lord Thou hast been an abiding place for us throughout all generations,’ that is to say, ‘Thou hast made us to have an abiding place in Thy compassion.'”
What does this mean for our memories? It means that “…where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…” Romans 5:20
reconciling things 