Fresh Air

The other day I was driving along and, out of nowhere, there came this memory of a person at church who had been particularly unkind to me, even seemed to enjoy it, get energy out of it. What she did and said easily rate as some of the most disrespectful, dehumanizing, insensitive and heartbreaking things I’ve ever heard come of out of the mouth of one who would claim to be a Christian.

Where did that come from? I was having a nice day until that memory got caught in the car with me on a very hot day. It was flying around like a wounded hornet looking for someone to sting again, me in particular. Every attempt to flush her out the window only made her madder and drove up the chance of me having a wreck exponentially. How’d she get in my car? How come I couldn’t get her out?

As I remembered what she said, the tone of her voice, the scowlish-mean look on her face, I found myself right back in the room where that conversation took place. My heart was racing. My palms were sweaty. I was coming up with things I was going to say back to her if and when she ever came up for air. I actually started talking back to her, as though the hornet was listening. Suddenly, it occurred to me that, by just allowing myself to remember what she said, I was actually reliving the moment, physically, spiritually, emotionally, feeling the hornet’s sting. From head to pucker, I was tight as a drum, needing to cry but not able.

Just as suddenly, something (or, Someone), recalled to my memory one of the Apostle Paul’s more potent hornet-swatting scriptures. “This one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on to what lies ahead.” Like a swatter, it’s one piece of equipment, with two sides. One side is forgetting, the other side is pressing on. Without both sides, it doesn’t work.

That’s when it occurred to me. One of the greatest of all spiritual disciplines is that of being able to remember but choosing, instead, to forget. The capacity to remember is a gift of God. Some researchers say that every event we’ve ever experienced, good and bad, is recorded somewhere on a molecular piece of our cerebral computer. Along with that gift, God also gave us the gift to say no to certain memories, to assign them a place in our heart and mind where they will starve to death for lack of attention. It’s a spiritual discipline, remember. It takes commitment and practice, all of your life, knowing how to remember but choosing instead to forget.

I’d like to tell you about some really awful things others have done to me, and some I’ve done to others. But, then again, I’d just be swatting at hornets and reliving the stings of them all, and wrecking my life and the lives of others for no good reason at all. Driving along, I think I’ll just leave the windows down and let the fresh air of God’s future clear my head. I might even stick my bald head out the window and feel the freshness of the new morning that just came with the sunrise!