Religious Memories, and Memory

Early September always puts me in the mind of my early memories of going to school. When I was in kindergarten, I had to ride the bus for about two miles to get to the school, and that is the longest distance I ever had to ride the bus to arrive at school. I remember the smell of the diesel fumes on a crisp fall morning as the bus driver stopped to pick up students along the way. To this day, the smell of diesel fuel burning transports me back to those bus trips so long ago. September also reminds me of the first parish that I served after graduating from divinity school. For the first time in my life, I was not attending school in the fall, and everything seemed a bit strange and new to me as I went about my daily tasks while others attended classes somewhere. For some, September reminds them of "Rally Day," when the Sunday school classes were promoted to the next grade and the program year began in the church. A family picnic at a location that resembles a grove where picnics were taken when the youth group went on an outing can make our senses come alive. The sound of a beloved hymn, or the smell of candles burning or sunlight illuminating stained glass can all have dramatic effects on our memories. Religious memory can be a very good thing, as it can take us back to times in our lives when we may have made important decisions about our faith, or times that God just seemed a bit closer. Memory can also convict us, sometimes, because we may believe that we were more active, spiritually, when we were younger than now. However, such memories can serve to idealize a time that may not have been as much a time of spiritual growth and certainty as we remember. When recently I stood in the chapel at my Alma Mater and celebrated Holy Communion, for the first time ever in that space, I was overtaken by a sense of awe, of then, and now. I was moved by the memories of the time that I spent there as a student, and as I looked around the room, I was touched by the faces of former classmates and former professors who had gathered that day. But I would not return to those student days for anything, because I had so much to learn, and so much growing to accomplish. Though I was a very devout young man back then, I was so clueless as to the fullness of faith's meaning. Though I must still work to "go on to perfection" in Wesley's words, I know that I have a greater sense of God's love and compassion now that I have lived these years as an adult. I hope that you also have memories that warm your heart, coupled with the perception to help you to know how far you have come on your spiritual journeys since those days. Who we are and what we believe is built always on the soil of where we have been.