Do you know that memory can be a powerful tool for spiritual and emotional rejuvenation? Memories are both helpful and hurtful, and you and I decide what to do with them. Let me explain.
I once attended a conference at a retreat center in the Rocky Mountains. We were given a long break one afternoon to relax and renew our spirits. I decided to go for a walk by myself.
A little way down a secluded, dirt road, I spotted horses in a corral. I carefully approached, so as not to frighten them. When I neared, I breathed in horse smells. With the scent of the horses and the corral came something I didn't expect – a flood of memories.
I took another breath and vividly recalled visiting my grandparents' guest ranch every summer as a child. When I was a teenager, I worked on the ranch. Some of my happiest childhood memories involved horses.
I inhaled deeply. I recalled hot afternoons of pulling saddles and blankets off perspiring horses then brushing down their backs. The pungent smell of horse sweat filled my mind and let loose a flood of memories I hadn't recalled for many years. I thought about the soft touch of a horse's nose sniffing my hand for a sugar cube, and the warmth of a furry neck as I put my arms around it and hugged it close. Even manure smells brought back good memories – thoughts of hours spent in corrals saddling, bridling and working with horses.
For two hours I let myself think and remember and feel. The memories worked some kind of magic inside me, healing and rejuvenating. I recalled day-long horseback rides, valley vistas of tall grass and pristine mountain creeks running beside horse trails carved in red earth. I fondly remembered those mornings I rose before dawn, saddled up a horse and scoured forest land searching for wandering horses, let out to roam and graze at night, to round up and bring in to the ranch before breakfast.
Until I smelled the horses, I had almost forgotten. And it occurred to me that these memories are important. They give me energy and new life. I should never lose them and I'd do well to visit them from time to time.
Memories are both helpful and hurtful and we decide which to keep alive.
Some people look back and feel guilty. Again and again they remember their failings and mistakes. They scrutinize these painful memories in detail. Like a child with a bag of marbles who holds them up to a strong light, one by one, examining their chips and flaws before carefully placing them back. When they take time to remember, they choose memories that are flawed; memories that evoke guilt and regret and steal peace of mind.
People similarly revisit memories of past loss, or personal rejection or any number of other hurts inflicted upon them over the years. They bitterly remember each incident and relive old feelings of loss and grief before locking the memory back into a secure place where it can be easily retrieved. The memories they choose to call up leave them sad and forlorn and rob the present of its power.
I don't suggest that you ignore pain. Feel it, understand it and do whatever is necessary to heal from it. Guilt, mistakes and pain are part of living. But why cultivate a habit of regret or bitterness? Those memories you choose to visit day after day will either flood your mind with strength-giving energy or drain it of power to live.
Choose wisely which memories to call up. Pick memories that will rejuvenate your spirit with new life. Revisit them often. You earned them, and they are a treasure nobody can steal.
-- Steve Goodier
I once clipped a strange story from the newspaper. It was about a man named Jose Estrada who drove to a popular trail where he like to jog. While Estrada was running, another jogger on the same trail collapsed and died of a heart attack. The man's body was taken to a nearby hospital where authorities found a car key in his pocket, but no identification.
Assuming they would be able to find the name of the deceased man in his automobile registration papers, they brought the key back to a parking lot near the jogging trail. They figured that if they tried the key in various locked doors of cars parked by the trail, they might eventually find his car and learn who he was. So they experimented until they were able to open the doors of one of the vehicles.
Now, here's where the story gets strange. The key opened the door of Estrada's pickup truck. They examined Estrada's registration papers and notified his wife of her husband's untimely death. They asked her to come to the hospital and identify his body.
And here is where the story gets stranger still. Mrs. Estrada saw the body on the table with a tube snaking from his mouth, his eyes taped shut and wearing jogging clothing much like her husband wore. In her distraught condition she assumed the body belonged to Jose and signed the death certificate.
Meanwhile, Jose Estrada finished running, drove back home and promptly learned from a friend, who was more than stunned to encounter him in the flesh, that he was supposed to be dead. He immediately sped to the hospital and strode, as big as life, into the waiting room. His startled wife fell into his arms laughing and crying. The only thing she managed to spurt out was, “Jose, if you ever die on me again, I'll kill you myself.” After all, he was dead and then he was alive... he was lost and then he was found. All in a single day.
Eventually, the poor deceased man was properly identified and his family contacted. For this man's family, as well as for Estrada's wife, I wonder what thoughts first surfaced when they received news of the untimely death. Did they try to recall their last moments with him? Did they try to remember if they told him they loved him that morning? Was there an argument? Were there regrets?
How fragile life can be. I suspect that, if life came in a package, it would arrive in a box labeled, “Fragile: Handle with Care.” It is delicate and can be damaged in a moment. And I also suspect that, if life came in a package, it would arrive as a gift. It is undeserved and priceless. Which of us earned it and who could ever afford it?
My challenge is to remember that life is fragile. And it is an awesome gift. But what I want to remember most of all is that the people in my life, these beautiful gifts, are also fragile. And they, especially, need to be handled with care.
– Steve Goodier
Image: freeimages.com/Jane M. Sawyer
In Turin, Italy, an anonymous citizen wrote the tax office enclosing 10,000 Lira in the envelope and explained he had cheated on his income tax. He said it caused him to lose his appetite. Then he added, "If my appetite doesn't improve I'll send the rest."
It sounds like an easy weight loss program, but I don’t think it could work for me. Guilt doesn't keep me from eating. It has kept me awake more than once, however.
William Wirt Winchester's widow Sarah built a bizarre mansion in San Jose, California, to assuage her feelings of remorse. It is a house built over a 38-year period at a cost of over five million dollars. The 160 room house has stairways that lead to blank walls, corridors that lead to un-openable doors, 13 bathrooms, 13 stair steps, 13 lights to a chandelier, 13 windows to a room…strange.
Her husband was the son of Oliver Fisher Winchester, manufacturer of the famous Winchester repeating rifle. The house is referred to as the "guilt house," and was conceived as a never-ending building project to provide a home for spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles. Instead of addressing her grief and remorse in more therapeutic ways, Sarah’s project occupied the rest of her life.
The late Erma Bombeck called guilt "the gift that keeps on giving." (She also said she came from a family of pioneers – said her mother invented guilt in 1936.) And it CAN be a gift that keeps on giving when it isn't laid to rest. It can keep on giving problems to everyone it touches - emotional, physical and spiritual. It seems that if we don’t find a way to deal with it, guilt may deal with us in some frightening ways.
Do you have unresolved guilt? I'm not talking about "good" guilt, the feelings of shame or remorse that keep us from doing something incredibly stupid or hurtful. I mean unnecessary guilt. Over-anxiety and self-loathing about that which can no longer be changed.
If so, it may help to remember that:
- In one day you can recognize where your feelings of guilt come from.
- In one day you can decide to make necessary amends to those you may have hurt.
- In one day you can decide to ask for forgiveness from others.
- In one day you can exercise your spiritual power and choose to be at one with God and the universe.
- In one day you can decide to be gentler with yourself and allow yourself to experience the healing balm of acceptance.
- In one day you can resolve to learn from the past and not repeat your behavior.
- In one day you can choose to do something constructive with that guilt, and then continue every day until it is only a memory.
And best of all, that one day can be today.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: flicker.com/Aude Lising
