Sensory recall - a gift

Image by Randy OHC via Flickr

Over at Lucy's site this week there was a post regarding being transported in time through memories, memories translated into joy and sometimes into unexpected exuberance when recalled. I highly recommend you visit her site for a read. I responded to the post about music having transported me in time as well, and I share my expanded thoughts of that transport here.

An album that I purchased and downloaded this year from ITunes is "Chant - Music for the Soul" by the Cistercian monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz. I knew I loved the music the first time I heard it but as I've played it again and again, I realized the why of my enchantment with "Chant."

The memories, brought to me by the Cistercian monks, are those of worship participation some years ago at a seminary in New York City. The music recalls the rich intonations and enhancement of strong, worshiping voices echoing back and forth across the chapel. The memory doesn't make me want to go back in time - just to remember and to feel that aura of a blessed moments there in worship.

The gift of memory is truly an amazing one and I don't take it for granted. Participating in worship in many places during my life, I feel blessed that some mornings as I make the bed or brew my decaf, I find music in my presence, in my mind; a hymn of unknown origin greeting me, simply, unconsciously. The memory of the last place I heard the music is not so important as the reminder that I'm receiving another gift besides just the tune. I'm receiving something holier and more blessed than perhaps my human mind can comprehend. I'm being reminded of worship some time, some place - either near or far - making me aware of the gift and of the spirit for which I yearn regularly. The gift and the spirit or there just for the asking, or the remembering, or just for the humming.

Do you speculate or consider right now your memory of blessed music, or a memorable sunset or site, to be a gift?......... or have you never thought about not having the memory of the music, the site? A blessing to have all. I try to remember that point regularly and Lucy's post reminded me of those blessings today. Did you need to be reminded also? Maybe?

Photo - General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church - The Good Shepherd Chapel - by Randy OHC via Flickr

Remembering the ashes

I vaguely remember as an adult, the first Ash Wednesday I was marked with ashes. It was a moving moment for me - a humbling, holy moment. After the service, I went directly home and absent mindedly caught my reflection in a mirror. Instantaneously, I thought - what's that?!.....How quickly one can forget the mark! How quickly non-humble consciousness returns.

I felt the same way yesterday, not having yet received my ash cross, when I spied a woman pulling into a parking lot space near mine - "oh dear," my mind blurted, "that woman is terribly disfigured!" Oh, where is my consciousness, where is the power of memory? I wonder sometimes why I was given the luxury of memory and free will!

So as I received the ash mark and heard the words, from dust you were born, to dust you will return, I prayed for not only the humbling and holy experience of receiving the blessed ashes but also for the wisdom and strength to carry those words through the season of Lent - remembering the momentary cosmetic disfigurement and the mark of remembrance from whence I came and will return.

I pray that my Lenten journey and yours as well, may be filled with remembrance of the ashes' declaration and the promise that Lent brings us as we wander some 40 days in the wilderness, while attempting to focus on what is important in our mortal life.

Photo-SS Kapalua Coast Trail, Maui

Dress Up Day - It was Halloween

When I was a kid, I think Halloween must have been the next best thing to Christmas or to my birthday. We used to dress up and take off to canvas the neighborhood in little packs of 5 or 6 kids. No danger of poisoned apples or "seeded" candied popcorn balls. Our Mothers warned us to look carefully at all of the street corners before crossing and to stay together. We knew the boundaries of the neighborhood and actually never thought of going outside of them. No parents were required to guarantee our safety as we streaked around the neighborhood, sometimes with a flashlight and sometimes not, ringing, giggling, shouting "trick or treat" with not an idea in our heads of ever really tricking anyone!

My brother, I and our friends and cousins dressed up in all kinds of costumes - mostly sheets, or grown ups' clothes, high heels or Dad's shoes - sometimes a brown paper grocery bag became a neat cut out costume of some sort and corrugated boxes could be all sorts of things - brightly wrapped packages with one of our heads sticking out of the top, arms out the side and legs out the bottom. Our Mother, or for that matter any of our friends' mothers, never would have thought about "ordering" a costume. There was no money for such an extravagance nor was there a desire from any of us for a store-bought creation.

Occasionally though our Mother, a wonderful seamstress, would sew up something really special. Today rustling through old photos, I came across this darling photo of my younger brother - I believe he was nine in this photo - I wonder if this was one of those occasions or was this a school production outfit? Whatever the event was, what a darling little boy - no embarrassment, no tears - just loving the whole look! It seems to be the only costume photo I've found in the family photos that I possess; I could not resist placing it on my site today.

There will be lots or maybe only a few trick or treaters in our neighborhood tonight. We've purchased the obligatory wrapped candy treats and I'll resist the temptation to turn off the porch light and retire with a Netflix in hand......"Really?" you think. Yeah, really but actually I'll keep the light on and ooh and aahh at every little costumed creature that rings the bell, I'll tell them how spectacular they look and let them select from the candy basket. I'll wave to their parents who are very close at hand, sometimes as far away as the front curb but not much further than that. A child could not troop around these days unchaperoned after dark even in the closest of neighborhoods. Halloween is still a wonderful time for the kids but for the parents it's a time for guarded trick or treating with their little goblins!

Happy Halloween JDS!

"Memory - the presence of the past within us"

Reading Winter Grace, Spirituality and Aging by Kathleen Fischer, she describes in small part what memory is and how it shapes our lives. "Memory enables us to hold fast to our identity and shape it in new ways. Beneath the annoyance we experience at not being able to recall names and dates or find our glasses is the nagging fear that some part of us is slipping away." In later words - "We do not merely have these memories; we are these memories. Western culture tends to view time as more destructive than creative. But memory is a way of describing the cumulative nature of time, the presence of the past within us. Not only is memory fundamental to personal identity; it is central to religious identity. Memory reveals God's presence in our life."

Further on Fischer quotes from Fredrick Buechner's - The Sacred Journey - wherein Buechner stresses that we can continue to learn from all of our memories. "Memory," he says, "is not the looking back to a past that no longer exists. Rather, it allows us to look into an altogether new kind of time where everything that ever was continues to be."

I find the words of Fischer and of Buechner to be hope filled statements in that memory, i.e., ourselves are the wondrous result of everything that has ever been and still we continue with the chance to produce more memories and to become even more of what we were created to be.

Memory for me today, at least for now and as I settle into sleep tonight, will be the warm sunshine after days of rain, a drive through green waving wheat fields, with glimpses of new snow atop our mountains, casual, yet meaningful conversation with my spouse - blessings too rich to be forgotten quickly - not an ordinary, but an extraordinary day.

I hope your day was extraordinary also and that if you think it not to have been on the surface, that you'll reach deep into the day's memory and find that one sweet moment you were given - maybe it was just one quiet moment or just a drop of cream in your coffee:)

Photo memory - Cannon Beach, OR 12/07