Wednesday February 24, 2010
Fear of being forgotten
By Jim Taylor
A shiny new park bench appeared on a beach by the lake.
The seat and back are polished concrete. The frame is cast iron, bolted down to a concrete pad.
It’s a nice bench, a comfortable place to sit, looking out across a little bay to the hills on the far side of the lake.
The bench is a memorial to a 20-year-old son who died a little less than a year ago.
It’s also illegal. The bench sits on public parkland. Last year the municipality went to considerable expense – and controversy – to remove all unlicensed docks, campfire rings, and other structures. The parent who erected this memorial has not always enjoyed amicable relationships with municipal bureaucrats.
So I doubt if they gave permission to erect this memorial bench along the shore. I could be wrong, of course. But who’s going to protest a grieving father’s last symbolic gesture to his son? Certainly not me. My wife and I lost our son 27 years ago; the wound still remains raw.
Permanent legacy
What interests me – about this memorial, but also about others – is our human compulsion to leave something permanent behind. A park bench, at an appropriate location, with a suitable plaque mounted on it. A bursary or scholarship. A book. A building…
Something, anything, that will outlast the donor.
Some wit caustically called this compulsion an “edifice complex.” Wealthy philanthropists fund a concert hall, a university faculty, a church… Less affluent families plant a tree, a memorial garden…
The Holy Land takes this compulsion to an extreme. Every site of any significance seems to have a church built on top of it.
The “edifice complex” is even recorded in scripture. At the miracle known as the Transfiguration, when Jesus appeared with a pair of long-dead predecessors, an awestruck Peter blurted, “Let us build three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
Beyond memory
Our compulsion to leave something permanent probably starts with a fear of being forgotten. “Life’s but a walking shadow,” Shakespeare mused, “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.”
Memories are mortal, after all. In Funeral for a Stranger, Becca Stevens muses, “Not only are we dust, but our memories are dust… Our memories are as fragile as the neurons that carry them. My mother’s memory turned to a sponge when she was dying….”
And then she makes an enormous leap: “One of the beautiful things about sacred texts is that they remind us we are not forgotten; we will be remembered by God.
“Heaven is God’s memory. We are preserved in the memory of love that is big enough to contain all creation, for all time. No one is forgotten, because everyone is beloved.”
As regular readers will know, I have trouble with many conventional images of heaven. Streets paved with gold and long white nightgowns fail to attract me.
But to be cherished forever, in a memory that will never fade — that, to quote Shakespeare again, is indeed “a consummation devoutly to be wished.”
=====================================
Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write jimt@quixotic.ca Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn’t delete your message. =====================================
Your Turn
I had feared that last week’s column, on the mental “hard-wiring” that leads us to prefer short-term solutions to longer vision, might be a bit too academic. Apparently not.
William Ball, in Ottawa, found the column timely as he prepared a sermon on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness: “Each of these temptations might be described as short-term thinking — solutions to the question: ‘How do I get people to listen to me and be pointed to God?’ (one of many ways of describing what this story means)
“To a certain degree, I am not tempted by these, as I am not Jesus. Yet any and all of these have been tried by those in power — to maintain power and control — but it never lasts. Bread and circuses, promise of glory, dazzlement of the crowds — ooh and ahh, (instead of shock and awe). Again, short-term thinking, not to mention the kind of bait and switch bamboozle which keeps us befuddled. Still not sure where I’m going on this, but thought that I’d share my thoughts, in the deepest part of February, while the Olympics gives us ooh and ahh.”
Joan Mistretta wrote, kindly, “No lectures this time. Sometimes we (even young people) must think beyond our own lifetimes if we really want to make significant changes in society.”
Perry Millar, from Saskatoon, probed whether understanding the evolutionary nature of our decision-making would actually help some of us.
“It seems to me understanding this [process] would help people who have to manage chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes,” Perry wrote. “I know that keeping them motivated, on their diets, sticking to their exercise is a challenge to the wellness people who try to support these people in an ongoing way.
“Or perhaps, I’m just one of those ‘understanding’ junkies. For some reason, I’ve always thought that if you just understood reasons, consequences, etc., this would fix you right up. To some extent it does work quite well for me, but I’ve noticed that not all people respond this way to information.”
Cliff Boldt referred to a sign in his credit union: “People don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.”
Gary England –- possibly from New Zealand – agreed with my underlying thesis in the previous week’s column: “I too see very little in the current implementation of Christianity that would cause me to want to become a Christian.”
=====================================
About My Books
Over the years, I think I have written (or ghostwritten) about 17 books. Several of them (mercifully) are no longer available from any source. But here’s a listing of those that are still available. The ones marked “WLB”, you can order from Wood Lake Books, either on-line at http://www.woodlakebooks.com, or call Wood Lake Books directly at 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-654-5129 (Pilgrim Press) in the U.S. The ones marked “JT only” are now available only directly from me — as collector’s items, I price them all at $25 Cdn.
- Everyday God: Insights from the Ordinary
- Two Worlds in One
- Last Chance
- Seeing the Mystery: Exploring Christian Faith through the Eyes of Artists,
- Surviving Death
- Everyday Psalms
- Everyday Parables
- Letters to Stephen
- A New Understanding of Virtue and Vice
- Precious Days and Practical Love: Caring for an Aging Parent
- John for Beginners
- Spirituality of Pets
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about small town attitudes and bumbling bureaucrats are not particularly religious, but good fun anyway; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
(1981 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1985, JT only)
(1989, JT only)
(1990, with William S. Taylor, JT only)
(1993, JT only)
(1994 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1995 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1996, WLB, $17.95)
(1997, WLB, $19.95)
(1999, WLB, $19.95)
(2001, WLB, $11.95)
(2006, WLB, $39)
=====================================
TECHNICAL STUFF
To comment on something, in these columns, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the addresses above. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to softedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at softedges-unsubscribe@quixotic.ca.
You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.
I write a second column each Sunday, called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justic issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF…
If you know someone else who might like to receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or, if you wish, forward them a copy of this column. But please put your name on it, so they don’t think I’m sending out spam.
For a lighter look at life, faith, and the lectionary, I recommend my friend Ralph Milton’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it by sending a note to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
*****************************************
