For Wilshire Baptist Church
Memory is not neutral or static. It can be a tool for good by reminding us who we are, where we’ve been, what we’ve done, what we’ve endured and what we’ve learned. It can help us stay on the good roads and not go back down the bad roads. Memory can also be a burden, reminding us of our mistakes and failures. It can keep us frozen with fear and self-loathing.
It’s a topic singer-songwriter John Prine covered simply and yet deeply in “I Remember Everything,” a song I had never heard until attending Wilshire’s first-ever Songwriter Vespers on a recent Sunday evening. I won’t peel back all the layers of that song here, but as one who likes words, I’m intrigued by how the first verse seems to encompass the depth and breadth of memory:
I’ve been down this road before
I remember every tree
Every single blade of grass
Holds a special place for me
And I remember every town
And every hotel room
And every song I ever sang
On a guitar out of tune
The song is biographical for Prine, of course, but if we run our own lives through its metaphorical sieve, we start to remember the places we’ve been, the beautiful things we’ve seen and experienced, the seemingly unimportant minutia of life — the blades of grass — that in hindsight have meaning, and the work we’ve done or contributed that has value, even when it was imperfect.
I’ve listened to the song countless times since first hearing it on that Sunday, letting it wash over me and shake out some of my own memories. I’m not sure that is one of the spiritual practices we’ve been talking about during Lent, but it struck a nerve with me that has been truly spiritual, as was the vesper service in general.
“I Remember Everything” was one of nine songs Darren DeMent and other Wilshire vocalists shared during the Songwriter Vespers. I appreciated how their renditions brought clarity to the wisdom of Prine’s words, because he had a voice that, frankly, was often hard to understand. I saw him live just once, at the Bass Hall in Fort Worth, and was supremely disappointed that the room and sound system overwhelmed his voice and his wonderful lyrics.
However, for the vespers benediction, Darren played a recording of Prine singing “I Remember Everything.” That was especially meaningful because it was the last song Prine recorded before his death from complications of COVID in April 2020, the week before Easter. His voice had deepened with age and the effects of cancer treatments, and the result is a recording where the lyrics are clear. Prine recorded the song before he got COVID, so it’s reasonable to believe he didn’t know it would be his last. And yet it sounds like what it was at Wilshire: a benediction. It sounds like a summation and blessing for all he had done and seen in his 73 years.
None of us knows the how or when of our own last song and benediction. And even then, the Easter story tells us there’s not an end but a new beginning. We also don’t know if our earthly memories travel with us or if the eternal is so expansive and fantastic that our earthly memories are left behind. For that reason, I’m inclined to try to capture the blessings of every blade of grass while I can.