Remember

Memory is such a unique and precious thing. Losing it is so devastating. So when the Bible tells its people to remember it is not a casual comment but about who they are.

Memory and identity are closely linked - who we are or at least who we can funtion as is bound up in what we can remember. If I cannot remember who my friends and family are - I cannot function as part of them. This is the devastating reality of degenerative brain disorders, where the person suffering gradually withdraws into a world away from others, often through an ugly, frightening, distorted world which is painful for all around them.

Forgetting who with are with God is not analogous to an illness which cannot be recovered from. Remember! says the writer - recover your identity and recover your confidence.

And that is our call to - this Lent - a call to remembrance and a call to confidence. We stand alongside those who suffer only when we ourselves remember that first call, that first breath of God on our own lives and all the work the Spirit has done since then. We are a body, remembering each other in community.

Calling is not just to in the moment action but to recovery, mindfulness and remembrance. In that slightly slower mode of life we will find a much more comprehensive and comprehensible faith that the drive thru, hurry by one which we may be accustomed to.