Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

It's definitely wrong to make three posts in one night... but I've not been blogging in ages... I don't reckon I will for a while... and I think I may have just had one of those really tangibly "deep" moments. This post is going to be working things out as I go and who knows if it will make it to the publishing stage. Whatever happens, it will probably be real... and narcissistic.

I just watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". That is a cue for anyone that doesn't find this film meaningful to stop reading now. I had never seen it, I knew it was a classic, the story sounded interesting indeed but I think that I avoided it because I could not deal with the concept of forgetting. I am, as I may have mentioned, a hoarder. Of all things, tangible and existential. I've been facing up to this challenge of late and the timing was perfect.

'Cause recently I have been doing some active forgetting. Recently as in this past year since God starting changing my life, these past 3 months since I got back to England, these past few weeks as I've been facing some residual memories, these last few days as I've had to challenge all of the above. The imagery is a big boulder that He smashed to pieces with His love and the revelation thereof but now He is going around picking out the bits of gravel - and some of them are pretty wedged in.

I threw out a bag of "stuff" last week which was neat. Took it with me from London to Bristol to deal with but couldn't face getting it out the car till then. Nothing specifically dodge but I needed to let it go for memories sake. I'm pretty sure that when I go back at Christmas there will be a whole lot more of that to do and so I'm getting ready...

Last night (late Friday) I had a conversation I shouldn't have about a person I don't know anymore. You know, when you can tell you are in an unhealthy discussion and that there is a lot of potential for badness but you are tired, hurting and frankly too stupid to know better. I was challenged on my memories and came away not sure what I recall as fact and fiction - problem with saying things best unsaid is that you end up hearing things best unheard. Let's call a spade a spade, I'd "erased" someone from my life and sometimes they do just creep back in.

The risk of being someone with a past (i.e. anyone) that can't be wiped clear whether you want to, don't want to or sometimes want to, is that it stays around. Even when we are sanctified by the blood of Jesus; even when we have forgiven, are guilt free and looking ahead; our brains have an uncanny way of wanting to defy all the best intentions in the world. I know that it is a decision I must make to move forward. It's a decision I have already made without any doubt in my mind, yet it is a decision I must continue to keep making. Still, having a piece of history based around love - which is what we seem to base our most significant things around - is messy 'cause it mixes up good stuff with not good stuff and leaves the two so tangled you can end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We shouldn't say goodbye to love but we must learn to extract it back for ourselves and put it to better use somewhere else. I don't want to leave my heart in a memory then try and erase the memory but equally I don't want to carry the crap around with me.

The thing that really struck me was that the minute before I watched the film I read a poem (have been trawling the labyrinth of my files, hence the sudden splurge of them) and I had opened one I did not recognise then forgotten so that it popped up when I was closing programs. It's from last October and isn't very positive: all about stuff going wrong really...

What comes before a fall?
“They” say pride.
The inevitable fall out of a conceited heart
Just desserts on every part

What comes before a fall?
I say hope.
The inevitable fall out of an expectant heart
Just surviving alone in the dark

What is it that makes a fail?
Pushing resources beyond the mark
With pacing yourself and working hard
Success will entail, set you apart

What is it that makes me fail?
Trying for something I cannot live out?
Or speaking the words that make it go south?
Having an attitude full of doubt

How to avoid the spiraling doom?
Cannot expect for risk of defeat
Instead, telling forth, I sow what I reap.
When what we believe is the key to our curse
With each emphasis it gets worse and worse

Can the pattern be broken?
One thing’s for sure
Writing this verse isn’t the cure

I just love that it is about self-curses which is effectively what we put in place when we hold onto our broken memories and give them power in our lives. I suppose the point is a reminder that we need to break the patterns. Not be moping over the defeat or the fall or anything else that is going to drag us down but by letting the memory be where it is, in the past. God doesn't want to give us a hope and a past now does He? Jesus came to make all things new.

So don't tell me that that film is all about the need to remember things you sometimes want to forget. It is about dealing with memories properly. Not running away but also not deciding that they are all there is to the truth. We are/should be changing all the time into what we don't fully know but memories can only tell us about the past, not the future.

"What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out she’s a stranger." The fear of letting go is that we have wasted time but ironically the more we hold onto it the more we waste. There's gonna be no junk in heaven anyway so why have it here on earth? It's funny, you get warned about storing up your treasures on earth but sometimes we are storing up far worse things.

Change your heart, look around you. Change your heart, it will astound you. Parting theme tune, parting theme. Goodnight.