When You Become Your Past

Is Memory God’s Book of Life?

In high school, I wanted to be a famous poet. I was lucky enough to sell a poem to a national publication, thanks to my Creative Writing teacher’s insistence that everyone submit for publication. I got a whole three dollars for a sappy poem I wrote. The poem is rather cringey now, but the thing I remember most is that soaring feeling, that for once, something worked out well and maybe also God loved me after all.

Now, many years later, I’m thinking about memory in a different way. Yes, memories are all I have now—of loves and disasters, achievements and dumbass moves I’ve made. But on the other end of life, memory is more than a diary. More than the trauma of being sent away to the Crippled Children’s Hospital, the horror that my peers at school would know my secret. And much more than simply replaying the events, words and emotions that circle endlessly in my head.

We’re all more than the sum of our pasts.

When I taught memoir writing, I used to remind students, “It’s not about you.” A good memoir elicits sparks of recognition in the reader—they see bits of themselves mirrored in your memories. And whether you choose to write about your life or not, we’re all more than the sum of our pasts.

When I cycle through my treasure trove of memory, the chronicle of this event or that thing is much more. My past, like your past, invites us to somehow make sense of those memories. I wonder if that’s the beginning of wisdom.

Wisdom’s pretty fickle. It waits until we’re ready to lay aside grudges and petty grievances. Oh sure, we’re allowed to stay traumatized and bitter if we choose. Go ahead, Wisdom says, be the victim. Whine and tell everyone how wronged you have been. Make Wisdom’s Day.

But in order to step into Wisdom’s realm, we have to shed a few pounds of these time-sucks of axe-grinding. No matter what’s happening in your life—right this minute—Wisdom calls upon us to move beyond retribution. To lay aside blame and all the ways we’ve been done wrong. Only then can we glimpse the bright star of love as it rises in our lives.

But how do you get there? Most days, I feel as if I’m the same old dum-dum as always. I snap at my loved ones when I’m tired. I replay old hurts and pout because I’m not a famous poet. My young dreams are all replaced with retreads of the day-to-day ordinary life I now lead. And yet, memory comes to rescue me from myself. Memory becomes, for me, a conduit to Wisdom 101.

The brilliant writer, Fred Buechner wrote, “The sad things that happened long ago will always remain a part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.” That’s a very long sentence, but Buechner urges us to make peace with our hurts so that whatever memories we make going forward, we can do so wisely.

And love is the straightest path to making that peace.

Maybe that’s why God tells us so often about forgiveness. It’s hard to love when you shake your fist at the heavens for dealing you such a lousy hand. Making peace with your past requires forgiving others, of course, but also forgiving your own little sweet self. You won’t forget but you’re no longer held captive by your grudges and wounds.

And when good stuff happens, Wisdom isn’t about to let you crow all day long. After I sold that poem in my senior year, I was rejected approximately ten thousand times after that. Maybe that’s why the scriptures say in much wisdom there is much grief. Apparently, humility is also a core ingredient of becoming wise.

I suppose not everyone wants wisdom, just as some relish their role as a persecuted victim or avenging crusader. But if, like me, you face a whole world of hurt, it might be time to corral your memories into a gift. The events and relationships that make you you are precious in and of themselves.

I strain against the ropes that seek to tie me to the history of nothingness, even as I know all that is my memory will fade away as time marches on. Yet as I choose to forgive more, make peace more, love more, it won’t matter that I wasn’t a famous poet. All that will remain is my love, jumping from star to star out in the cosmos.

We’re all a jumble of sad things and glad things, memories that are unique and yet reflect our culture and place. Whatever God writes in the Book of Life about you and me, let it be that we walked toward wisdom in our quest for love.