Tag Archives: mortal

Immortal Memory

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“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal life. I have seen almost all the beautiful things God has made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has planned for man; and yet as I look back I see standing out above all the life that has gone four or five short experiences, when the love of God reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love of mine, and these seem to be the things which alone of all one’s life abide.”
– Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World

Whoah. There’s this story in the February National Geographic (Memories Can Be Altered in Mice. Are Humans next?) that has given me some pause for thought. Apparently neuroscientists have found a way to alter memories in mice – to get rid of old mice memories and create new mice memories. And… yikes?

I will not deny there are some memories that bring me pain. And, frankly, there are a LOT of memories that bring me embarrassment. And a few times I’ve caught myself wishing those memories could just go away. But those memories – the painful ones and the embarrassing ones, too – have taught me things that were important for me to learn. Those memories have helped guide the choices and decisions I make during the course of a day. How could I lose those memories and still keep the wisdom they brought?

There have been a few movies that have been built around the notion of memories being altered – Total Recall, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Manchurian Candidate. But those were just fiction. Until now I’ve always been confident that – if I lost everything else – I’d always have my memories of loved ones and good times to help me get through the dark periods in life. As Fred Astaire sang to Ginger Rogers, I’ve always thought, “They can’t take that away from me.”

But the article in National Geographic is nudging me to go deeper in my thinking about memories and memory loss. It’s nudged me to not be so cavalier about my memories, and to ponder the nature of memories and our identity. Are our memories what give us our identity? Would we have different identities without memories? What would the world be like if no one HAD a memory?

As the daughter of a 100 year-old father who has been diagnosed with some memory problems, I’ve sometimes felt the need to give prayerful thought to the notion of memory loss. One passage that has been helpful to me can be found  in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The author of Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: “If delusion says, ‘I have lost my memory,’ contradict it. No faculty of Mind is lost. In Science, all being is eternal, spiritual, perfect, harmonious in every action. Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness.”

That passage can be found under the heading Immortal Memory. Which leads me to ponder this: Is there a difference between immortal memory and mortal memory? And, if so, what is it…?

I guess a mortal memory would be a memory that can die? And “immortal memory” is memory that’s eternal?

In his book, The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drummond (a popular progressive Scottish minister of the 18th century) shares some of his thoughts on the things that are eternal, and the things that aren’t.

In I Corinthians 13 Paul writes,”Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away…”

In response to this Biblical passage, Drummond writes: “Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul did not condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but he picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men thought had something in them, and brushed them peremptorily aside. Paul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he said about them was that they would not last. They were great things, but not supreme things. There were things beyond them. What we are stretches past what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that men denounce as sins are not sins; but they are temporary. And that is a favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, not that it is wrong, but simply that it ‘passeth away.’ There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great deal in it that is great and engrossing; but IT WILL NOT LAST.”

Drummond goes on to write, “The immortal soul must give itself to something that is immortal. And the only immortal things are these: ‘Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.'”

So here’s what I’m thinking: The mortal memory may fade or be altered, but the love behind the memory – the love that went into making the memory – that stays. That’s an immortal memory.

Dad’s mortal memory isn’t as good as maybe it once was – but the immortal memory – the memory that holds Love – that’s still there. And I’m thinking that if I were to lose all my “mortal memories” – no one can take away the Love that was expressed in them and behind them and the foundation for them. You can’t take THAT away from me. (Imagine Fred Astaire singing here…) No, no, you can’t take that away from me.

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Art: Finding the Real Man and Woman

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“How embarrassing to be human.” 
– Kurt Vonnegut

“Those who look for me in person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me.  I hope and trust that you and I may meet in truth and know each other there, and know as we are known of God.”
– Mary Baker Eddy (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, page 120: 2

I did not know until last week that a biography had been written about one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut. The book, called And So It Goes: A Life, was published in 2011 – four years after Vonnegut’s death – and, according to the reviews, presents a Vonnegut different than the man we see in his books. In reviewing the book, Joseph A. Domino writes: “I have not read a lot of biographies; they could probably be counted on two hands. But this one is definitely the strangest. It is a systematic and comprehensive chronicle of Vonnegut and well-written. But Shields has something negative to say on almost every page about the author to the point of moral judgment. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

Another reviewer, B. Wilfong, writes: “It seems on browsing through some of the reviews of And So It Goes that many readers picked up this biography hoping to find the persona that Kurt Vonnegut crafted, as opposed to an honest story about the person. This is not a hit piece, as some reviewers assert, but rather a biography of the man, not the image he cultivated to sell his books.”

So here’s the thing: I am a huge fan of Vonnegut’s writing – I love the humanity and humor he brings to his stories. I love the heart. His writing comes from a place of  compassion and honesty, and forgiveness of people for their human-ness. All I want to know about Vonnegut I can find in his writing. The other stuff – personal insecurities, foibles, flaws, mistakes – that stuff doesn’t really interest me.  When Wilfong refers to “the persona that Vonnegut crafted, as opposed to an honest story about the person” – I find myself asking who’s to say which is the real Vonnegut, and which the illusion? Maybe we find the real Vonnegut – the essence of him – in his writing.

The same is true for my feelings about Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. When people have used examples of her human-ness to discount her writings – she used morphine; she divorced; she wanted this painting of her to be touched-up to make her look more attractive; and, in the end, she died like everyone else – it doesn’t affect me the way maybe her critics expect these things to affect me. I can relate to Eddy wanting pictures of her to be attractive – I mean, how many times have I refused to let someone tag me in a Facebook picture? And the fact that Eddy died in the end, like everyone else, doesn’t at all take away, for me, the value of her words and thoughts.

I’ve never been someone who followed people, you know? I follow ideas. And I love the ideas I find in Vonnegut’s writing, and in Eddy’s. I don’t need to know about their personal lives to be able to appreciate the wisdom and truth in their words.

The Wikipedia page about the Death of Ludwig van Beethoven reads, in part: “There is dispute about the cause of Beethoven’s death; alcoholic cirrhosis, syphilis, infectious hepatitis, lead poisoning, sarcoidosis, and Whipple’s disease have all been proposed.” Does Beethoven’s alcoholism, or the venereal disease he suffered from, make his music less beautiful? From an historical perspective, the facts of his life are interesting, I guess – but I think where we find the real essence of Beethoven is in his music – that’s where we see him rising above his mortality. The Wikipedia page reads: “Beethoven suffered declining health throughout the last years of his life, including the so-called ‘Late period’ when he produced some of his most admired work.”

And then there’s my dad, Dee Molenaar, who will turn 100 in June. What a life he has had! The adventures! The things he’s seen! The amazing people he’s met! He is an extraordinary man who’s lead an extraordinary life. Has he made mistakes? Yup. Does he have flaws and foibles? Sure. He’s human, after all. And humans aren’t perfect. But I think it’s when you look at Dad’s artwork that you really see the essence of him. He captures the beauty he sees in “his” mountains and paints it on paper for all of us to see with him – through his eyes. That beauty he sees and loves – that’s who my dad really is – that’s Dad rising above his mortality and human-ness and helping us all catch a glimpse of the immortal – the beauty that endures.

That’s what the arts do for us, right? In poetry, music, painting – in creative forms of expression – we are lifted above our mortality into a higher realm. We are inspired. We glimpse something brighter and more beautiful than the human flaws, foibles, and mistakes that would try to anchor us to mortality. I think the arts help us see what is real in each other.  I’m thinking we should let people’s art lift us up, instead of letting their human-ness keep us anchored to mortality.

“The real man is spiritual and immortal, but the mortal and imperfect so-called ‘children of men’ are counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid aside for the pure reality.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Dad painting

Dee Molenaar painting