Thursday, November 21, 2013

Remembering.

This week marks the anniversary of two milestones in American history:  the 150th anniversary of the delivery of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  Naturally, a variety of stories have been dedicated to both events, in newspapers and magazines, radio and television broadcasts, and other media.  Both call to mind very specific memories for me.

During my fifth and sixth grade years in southern Illinois (the "Land of Lincoln") in the early 1960s, we learned a lot about Lincoln, and we traveled to Springfield, to see Lincoln's home, gravesite, and other Lincoln-related historic sites several times.  During one of those trips, we visited a Lincoln historical museum across from the Lincoln family's home.  Amazingly impressed by all of that history, I bought a facsimile copy of the Gettysburg address, printed on the crinkled, artificially-produced "antique-parchment" paper that was then common for souvenirs.  I remember working hard at memorizing the speech, which I would recite in front of the mirror in my bedroom.

During my seventh grade year (1963-4), I got to see history as it was being made.  In September, 1963, my dad was sent by his employer to Washington, D.C., for a seven-month assignment, and our family all moved temporarily to the nation's capital with him.  While there, we visited the capitol, the major monuments, and a lot of historic sites.  When Mom learned that President Kennedy would travel to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Veterans' Day, we got up early in the morning to go there to see the President.  I was totally awestruck when the President's motorcade drove right by us on the cemetery access road, and President Kennedy waived to us.

To everyone's horror, just a week later he was killed.  We were enjoying a half-day school vacation, when Mom suddenly called my brother and me to the room where she had been watching TV, while ironing clothes.  Walter Cronkite of CBS News was announcing on-air that the President had been shot during a parade in Dallas.  The next day, we joined thousands of people outside the White House and walked toward the Capitol, where the President would be lying in state before his funeral.  The memory of those events remains incredibly vivid to me, even now.

But not only historic and traumatic events command the memory.  I have vivid memories of college graduation, our wedding day, and the birth of each of our children. their games, concerts, dance recitals and stage performances.  I remember lots of other important milestones, and there is a special satisfaction in being able to recall all of them.

So many people, though, suffer from diseases that rob them of their memory, and I can tell that my own memory is not as reliable as it once was.  It's a bit scary to realize that our own sense of continuity with our past can drift away from our ability to recall it.  But we have to remind ourselves that all of our lives are always incredibly brief, and that nothing in our own power is permanent.  The healthiest person with the very best memory endures no more than a little while.  Only God can offer lasting meaning and value.  Our memories can give us "increased devotion" to the tasks that lie ahead, and it is fitting to commemorate important events.  But we should remember (as long as we can) that God is our real strength and hope.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Beloved Children of God

This last week in our church, I had the honor to celebrate the baptism of two adults, as we welcomed them and three other adults as new professing members.   I told each of them, "Always remember that you are a beloved child of God."  That identity is important to who we all are, and what is expected of us.

According to Luke, as Jesus rose up out of the waters after his own baptism, he heard a voice from heaven confirming that he was "my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased."  Christ's heavenly sense of assurance of who he was made it possible to overcome all human temptations, and to endure all human rejection and suffering.  Remembering his identity, he could be the very personification of moral strength, in the midst of whatever happened.

In our own Twenty-first Century lives, our identity as part of Christ's body the church is something we get from God, not something we invent or earn.  And remembering who we are--and whose we are--makes it possible for us to rise above our temptations and weaknesses.  It makes us capable of doing great things, in spite of our limitations.  When we forget who we are, or shove our identity aside, we become vulnerable, obsessive, selfish, and easily intimidated.  The good news is that the assurance, the moral strength, the resilience, and the confidence are always right there, easily within reach, waiting to be claimed again.  Let's remember who we are.