“…you know that He is near, at the very gates.” Mark 13:29
I have been pondering on gates and doors and memories recently. Our gentle and loving God brings helpers to encourage such ruminating when it’s apparently necessary! Friends – both nearby and online - have been prompting this. And what better time than Advent, when we wonder yet again about how to let Jesus enter our lives?
“Lift up your heads, O gates; be lifted, you ancient portals, that the king of glory may enter.” Psalm 24:7
O Lord, I know that you are always at the gate of my heart and my life, always waiting to come in anew. Waiting for me to open the door – or perhaps yet another door – to heal, to illuminate, to sweep away what is no longer needed, to polish what is good, and to show me that shadows are only that.
One way to do this is to reclaim memories. Following are some excerpts of a meditation “The Gift of Memory” from Brother Curtis Almquist that spoke to me in advance of Christmas with my dear and extended family (http://ssje.org/ssje/2012/12/25/the-gift-of-memory-br-curtis-almquist/).
“Memory is a gift. Our memory allows us to see our life wholly, …to look back and to claim – from a more seasoned perspective – that what seemed good was actually amazingly good. The people who meant so much to you, who were so important and who were your making. You would not be the person you’ve become, with the values you hold and the qualities you emanate, without these amazing, wonderful, loving people in your past. Maybe they were like angels… Memory is a gift. Memory gives us a window to God. God is timeless. Our memory gives us a glimpse into how God sees and knows us, how God has loved us all along. Memory makes us whole because life actually is not linear. Life encircles us. God’s gift of life encircles us, and we participate in that circle with the gift of our memories. We can draw from our memories the gift of gratitude. Savor your memories; pray your gratitude for the amazing, even miraculous goodness of your life, stretching back to your own childhood.
And, secondly, draw from your memory the gift of redemption. There may well be things in your pas that you wish were otherwise: things said or not said; things done or left undone. Some of the regret may have been your own doing (or undoing); some of the regret may be at hands of others, and it may be saddening or maddening. Something wasn’t right: wasn’t then; isn’t now. Redemption is reclaiming a memory. Redemption is clearly remembering what was not good, not right, and yet acknowledging, where it’s possible, that what was your breaking may actually have become your making. Where you find yourself now has most likely come out of the best of times and worst of times in your own life. It is a huge grace to reclaim memories which may have been locked up in old closets of your memory, to salvage what otherwise might be lost on us. The gift of redemption draws from the treasury of our own memories, claiming the good that has even come out of the bad. Remember how your life has been salvaged, which is the gift of redemption.”
Lord, I thank you for all my memories – those of the past and those I have yet to make. I thank you for the people in my life who have helped bring me to this point. I thank you for the gift of my unique life. Please let me not be afraid to reclaim the locked treasury of memories. With you beside me, I can face what I may have tried to forget and come to compassionate understanding of what has been an unacknowledged source of sadness and grace. And I can also cherish and rejoice in what has been amazingly good!
Please, Lord, let this happen; open the doors of my heart. May it be my gift to you and to others this Christmas. I trust in you. Come Lord Jesus come!
Lynn
Lynn Wells is a St. Laurence parishioner and spiritual director.