Serendipity occurs in such interesting and unpredictable ways (such is its nature). Tonight I was driving to Tim’s when I began to think about lost memories that have been found; about the nature of memory and what’s important to remember and what we should forget.

So I decided I would come here to virtual land and write some observations I have about the whole thing and maybe work through it a bit. As I was firing up the laptop Criminal Minds started (very good show) and at a certain point one of the FBI officers has to meet the father of a murder victim near the body of his dead daughter. As the father is attempting to get to the body the FBI officer quietly speaks the following words to the man:

“It’s not a memory you want.”

They’ve used this line before in the show and I love it. It leaves the person with a choice to avoid pain. “It’s not a memory you want.” What kind of memory don’t we want? We do not want memories that cause us pain or remind us of pain. These are not memories we want.

When I was visiting Ontario after the death of my step-father last month I learned to my surprise in conversation with my Mum that I had forgotten some pretty significant incidents from my youth. Pretty savage and horrific things that we went through. My aunt (who was there at the time) thought it was probably a good thing that I had forgotten these things. My Mum on the other hand was adamant that I remember them and so she went through them in fairly uncomfortable detail.

I’m starting to think that maybe Mum was right and that these memories, as terrible as they are, must be retained. Memories of savagery. Memories of holocaust. Poet and philosopher George Santayana wrote “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (1905). The idea behind this is clearly a warning to remember horror. If we were “condemned” to repeat unremembered bliss we would all frequently have our memories wiped. No – this is a warning to not forget the evils that have been perpetrated on us and by us; on others and by others.

In our lives painful memories tie us to the past in ways that bliss does not. Pain is more concrete. And – the past is important to who we are now. And – who we are now is important to who we are becoming…who we will become. To restrain or deny these memories is to run the risk of having them repeated or worse – sub-consciously re-enacted by us in twisted new ways.

In 1 Corinthians 11:24 Paul reports the words of Christ as He presided over the Passover supper with His disciples – “And when he had given thanks, he (broke the bread), and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.”

These words reported to us by Paul are older than the recollections of the Gospels (according to a scholarly concensus) and have been dated to roughly 54 AD, or within approximately 20 years of Christ’s resurrection.

These words of Christ are the foundation for one of the two ordinances or sacraments we observe in the Protestant church (seven in the Roman Catholic tradition) and they are not meant to create a memorial of the triumphant resurrection of Jesus. Communion/The Lord’s Supper is meant as a memorial of Christ’s death. A memorial of a gruesome and painful execution. Remembrance of personal savagery and horror.

It is important to recognize that this memory of horror is vital not simply because it illustrates the evil humanity is capable of and the ultimate end of all evil (death) but also because it was through Christ’s death that something significant happened in human history. We remember this death in all its gruesome detail because it has caused us to become who we are now and this memory should shape us into who we will become. We remember the resurrection not as the ultimate saving act of Christ but as evidence the saving act had happened, the first fruits of the saving nature of His death…this is why the imagery used by Jesus is that of a broken body and shed blood.

Memories of savagery and holocaust are important. If we hold them we can allow them to shape us in a healthy way, we might become something better than what we were…if we deny them or try to hide from them they will still change us, but not necessarily for the better.