Day: May 3, 2019

Where are your memories?

I know people say we should “live for today” or “the present is all that matters”. But I don’t think so.

On some days, like today, my memories are all that sustain me. The present doesn’t work the best for me, and living for today is like an October dust devil…swirling through and kicking up leaves. It’s here and gone before you can even identify it.

More than anything else in my life, my biggest fear is losing my memories, forgetting where I’ve been, and who I’ve touched and kissed and loved. Losing me.

One of my older friends at Trade day took a nasty fall today. He said it was just a weird blank feeling, and he fell and pulled over his table while I was standing there and spilled his things. As I was helping him pick them up he kept saying he just didn’t know what had happened. There was a look in his eyes. Seventy six, just lost his wife this year. An uncertain look.

Then this afternoon I found out my Eli took a nasty fall at school and busted his chin on the pavement. He looked so pitiful and frail this evening when I saw him, and that same uncertain look in his eyes. He will remember that spill all his life, just as I remember riding my tricycle down the steps of our house when I was four and busting open my forehead. He will for sure remember this.

My older trade day friend may not remember his fall too long. He will for sure not have the chance to store it in his vault of remembrance near as long as Eli will his. And so the difference that seventy some odd years make. A lifetime started, a lifetime lived, and the memories are what makes the life. They are us, and we are them.

Where are your memories? I can still find mine most of the time right now, and for that I am so very grateful.

Remember my friend, and little Eli. They both need healing thoughts.

Lying is now an accepted way of life. People of all ilks try to see how much they can “get away with” when it comes to untruths. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook have exponentially increased the number of lies that are published on a daily basis, coming from the top down, among all manner of people.

Our world today is accurately described by Isaiah’s description of ancient Israel:

“None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.”

How then can we continue to survive in the modern world?

We can look again to the knowledge of the ancient text of Proverbs.

It tells us to trust in God with all our hearts; and lean not unto our own understanding. If we will acknowledge him, he will direct our path.

If we acknowledge God, and accept that we cannot understand how he created us, or our world, I believe he will give us the understanding we need to navigate the mine field of lies we must sail through every day we live in this modern world.

If we chart our course through life nowadays, based on what we think is true, we will certainly be deceived. Look around you, and you can see it happening every day, “tweet after tweet”.

I don’t think God deals with us through Twitter. I think he still deals with us through our hearts.

What do you think?