For Wilshire Baptist Church
Did you know that Thursday was World Backup Day – a day when everyone is urged to make backup copies of their important digital documents and photos? I didn’t know about it until I got an email from the maker of a device we have that lets you convert your old photographic slides and negatives into digital images to preserve and enjoy forever. Unless, of course, you fail to back them up and they are damaged or stolen or whatever.
This push to backup our important documents and “precious memories,” as the email called our photos, is compelling. But backing up can be about more than just our beloved photos and vital data. What about our memories? I’ve started a timeline of my life – a running, growing list of major and minor personal milestones, events and remembrances. I don’t recall exactly why I started it, but I think it might be because I’ve seen others become forgetful, and there are some things I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to live in the past, but I do want to be able to visit sometimes, especially when I need to recall something from the past that adds meaning to today or even direction for the future. We all have those odd little moments in our life story that in hindsight we realize changed the trajectory of our life.
Some of the events on my timeline are significant and some are just trivial. Some have specific dates, and some just approximate years. Some make me smile, some make me laugh, some make me cringe, some make me cry. But there also are events that I would be embarrassed to have anyone know about at all? I won’t write those down; I’ll “take those with me to the grave,” as the saying goes. But should I? Must I keep carrying them with me at all?
We’re more than halfway through the season of Lent, which is a time for preparing ourselves for Easter. As a lifelong Baptist I didn’t grow up observing Lent, but I at least had a basic understanding of it through my Catholic friends. And what I remember most about that – and what is still often talked about today – is the question they’d ask: “What are you giving up for Lent?” The idea is that during Lent we fast, take a break from or even give up forever something that is distracting us or preventing us from living a more holy and spiritual life.
What if we applied that Lenten notion of giving things up to our memories? Not the wonderful memories that bring us joy and feed our souls, but the memories of ugly, dark moments that haunt us and hold us back: our failures, embarrassments, transgressions. What if this Lenten season we choose not to keep backing up those memories into our conscious and subconscious where they can rot and spoil all that is good about our lives and more important, what is good about us? What if instead of backing them up, we drag them to the trash and delete them forever?
I don’t have a firm theological foundation for this except for perhaps the examples given by Jesus. Like the time he went home to eat with Zacchaeus, the reviled tax collector, thus inviting him to leave his past behind. Or when he dispersed the crowd who had gathered to punish the woman found in adultery, and then he asked, “Where are your accusers?” indicating that her sins were gone. And most certainly, the words Jesus spoke from the cross to the thief who confessed his sins: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
I also don’t have a specific spiritual practice or “how to” to recommend for doing this. As the scriptures suggest, honest confession and repentance would be a good start. I’ve been on retreats where we’ve been encouraged to write our sins on slips of paper and nail them to a cross or toss them in a fire. For me there’s always been a feeling of release and relief but then something happens later and the memories of those transgressions come back to me like digital files that can’t be erased. My list is getting shorter, but I still have work to do.
I haven’t begun to convert and backup my old slides and negatives yet. LeAnn gave me the photo copying device for my birthday and I plan to get started during Lent. I think it will be a blessing to revisit and reclaim distant memories and forgotten moments. I’m sure I’ll add some of those to my timeline. And if I can be intentional and honest about it, I’ll delete some more of the bad stuff.