Rector's Letter February 2007

Dear Friends,

‘Do you remember?’ It’s a common enough phrase. At Christmas time, it gets trotted out a lot in our house as we remember past Christmases. It’s funny, but the things that stick most in our minds are the ones where things have gone wrong – the year the fan on the oven went and David spent Christmas morning sitting behind the oven poking the offending piece, which kept jamming, with a long meat skewer, to keep it turning. I always comfort couples who are in a state of apprehension over their wedding plans, that the weddings which remain most in folk’s minds are the ones where something has gone wrong. I don’t actually think it comforts them much, but it is true.

Memory is such a strange thing. I listen to David describing some incident and I know he’s got it all wrong – it wasn’t there or with those people. And yet, suppose it’s me who’s not remembering it properly? What a terrible, impossible thought! But memory is so strange that what one person remembers from an event can be quite different from another’s. ‘Do you remember so and so?’ someone asks and sometimes I don’t, or have only the faintest recollection. There again, things that I remember as being of enormous significance have disappeared from other folk’s memories altogether. Have you ever been back to somewhere you once knew, only to find your memory of it is different from the reality now before you, even if nothing in particular has actually changed? Life can get more and more like that song of Maurice Chevalier’s, ‘Ah yes, I remember it well’.

Perhaps we remember best the things that we do repeatedly. Jesus at the Last Supper said, “Do this in memory of me”. It isn’t something do be done once, but continually. As we take communion week by week, our recollection of the presence of Christ is strengthened. God also promises to remember us. We are each held in his memory. He doesn’t scratch his head and wonder if we’re the one with the gruff voice or the long hair; we are held indelibly in his memory. To remember, in the Bible, means to care for. We are cared for – a good thought for the New Year.

Janice

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