The Memory of Good: Meditations on Conversion and Gratitude
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The Memory of Good: Meditations on Conversion and Gratitude by Miriam Marston Copyright © 2015 Miriam Marston All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. To my Middle Earth Family, who has taught me to follow the Good wherever it might lead; and while this road goes ever on please look back on this truth - for every time I sing a tune, I heard it first from you. Table of Contents Introduction I. The Postcard II. Rumors of a Good Thing III. Remember the Centurion IV. Mark and Jane V. Those Lovely Intangibles VI. Reminded VII. The Tax Collector VIII. Monica’s Son IX. To Whimsy and Stone X. Letters Home XI. Mended XII. Song of a Traveler XIII. Prayer to St. Sebastian XIV. The Gardener XV. Augustina XVI. That Day at the Shore XVII. A Pilgrim’s Way XVIII. The Dove and the Soapbox XIX. Sane and Cheerful XX. Léonie XXI. The North Wind XXII. Morning at Ostia XXIII. Simeon XXIV. Old no More XXV. Bells and Parachutes A Brief Reflection on a Second Birthday A Lyrical Epilogue Introduction “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” Genesis 1:31 * * * I open with a memory. I am seventeen-years old, and attending Sunday Mass. I’m occupying my usual place at the front of the church, trying to flash my best Sunday smile. I’m in the choir, after all, and people can easily see what I’m doing or not doing. I nod my head a few times during the announcements (“And remember the poor on your way out…”) Finally, I hear those highly- anticipated words spoken by the priest, rousing the people like the enchantment that awoke Sleeping Beauty from her nap: “The Mass is ended, go in peace.”* To which the entire congregation responds (and none more robustly than yours truly) with: “Thanks be to God!” That was what I said out loud. Truthfully, however, the spirit of my response was whittled down to: “Thank God!” It might not look like a lot is missing – mainly just a “be” and a “to.” Tiny words, really. But these tiny words were missing from my heartfelt reply, and that made all the difference. You see, I was grateful to God that Mass was over, not that it had just happened. One more item checked off the list of weekend chores! Onto the next thing now! For years, this was my internal disposition toward liturgy and the sacraments. Words like “encounter” and “relationship” had not yet figured into my spiritual or religious vocabulary. It won’t be difficult for you to believe, then, if I told you that I didn’t have a particularly profound or consistent prayer life in my younger years. But there is one prayer – if you could call it that – which I do remember saying quite often. I begged for the capacity to change. If I were going to ask God one thing, it would be that I’d never get stuck - in my ways, in my work, in my relationships. More than anything, I dreaded the prospect of getting old and losing the taste for life’s excitement and adventure, which, in my mind, had always been wrapped up with personal changes and transitions. I didn’t care as much what the passing years might do to my health or my appearance, but the desperate prayer that escaped my lips, as I sat on the edge of my bed and put my head in my hands, was simply: “please God, keep my heart open to starting something new, even when I’m forty.” (Keep in mind, I was a child, so forty felt a long way off…of course, it seems quite young from where I’m standing now). Over time, I came to realize that I was, in fact, begging for the grace of conversion. Still, it came as something of a surprise to learn that continued conversion was simply part of living as a Christian. After all, I’d gone through the sacraments of initiation. I’d been baptized, confirmed and given first Holy Communion. Didn’t that mean I was set for life? Oh, how gloriously wrong I was! Of course, baptism is the place of principal and primary conversion. But St. Ambrose speaks of two conversions in the life of the Church: “the water of Baptism and the tears of repentance.”1 These “tears of repentance” are a significant character in the pages that follow. They are not unhappy or gloomy tears; there is nothing to fear in this ongoing “movement of a ‘contrite heart,’ drawn and moved by grace to respond to the merciful love of God who loved us first.”2 These tears remind us that we are not God, but that we are loved by the One who is. I imagine that I’m not too different from most songwriters, in the sense that I’ve had my “go-to” subject matters for new songs. Conversion has become one of those “go-to” topics. But truthfully, I didn’t even realize to what extent my songs were steeped in this theme until enough people asked me what I wrote about. When I stopped and looked back on the years of songwriting, I noticed that my childhood prayer had somehow found its way through nearly all of my songs. My lyrical imagination was repeatedly moved to tell very short stories in which the protagonist underwent some kind of personal transformation – even a minor one, expressed in a single word or glance. Of course, there’s only so much that can be said in a four minute song, but it was my hope that a listener might be moved to at least ponder a chapter or two from the Book of Grace. It is most fortunate (at least it is for a songwriter who is always searching for that next source of inspiration) that we do not have to look very far at all to find copious examples of conversion. Scripture is filled to the brim with such stories. The entire narrative flows along this dynamic of turning towards and turning away, forgetting and remembering, rising and falling. Both the Old and New Testaments present individuals and nations who intermittently strive and fail to recall who should be governing their lives. At the end of the day, we are all faced with that choice: does my life come under the kingship of the Self or the Lord? And who we ultimately submit to has everything to do with how we live, how we love – and how we die. Scripture is already a tremendously rich resource, but it’s not the only place we’ll find instances of conversion. This is why you’ll come across a few chapters here which draw heavily from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. These two 20th-century authors have done so much to restore a sense of wonder and hope among readers, and have warmed many a chilled and hardened heart (including my own). My frequent allusions to their writing are a modest homage to their remarkable contributions to the lives of so many people who have sought the face of Christ and the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit. As the requests for “behind-the-song-information” increased, I started the habit of scribbling down notes about each one. As the pile of notes began to grow, I thought it would be a good idea to put them all together, and use them (in conjunction with Scripture and literature) as a springboard for further reflection and meditation. In this way, The Memory of Good was born. The title, oddly enough, had been bouncing around my head for a good ten years before I really settled on the theme of conversion. But even with that piece of the puzzle figured out, I quickly discovered that I could not write on the topic of conversion without addressing gratitude. It would be like telling a story of how I’d once received the most spectacular gift, but then neglected to send a thank-you card. And so the twin pillars of this book finally emerged: conversion and gratitude. But why, then, begin in the realm of memory? Because that is where we can take a step back and examine how the Lord has been present at every turn – at the peak of the mountain and in the depths of the valley. By reaching back into our memories, and recalling encounters with the living God, we are allowing for that grace to pull us forward and to reshape our hearts, imagination and senses, so that they are more closely in tune with the loving designs of our heavenly Father. Without such an exercise of recollection, we would be missing essential volumes from the Christian bookshelf, such as St. Augustine’s Confessions and St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul. Their memories of the good in their own lives have inspired countless others, who are then able to recognize the patterns of grace inscribed onto their own stories and journeys of faith. Memory does not operate exclusively at the individual level, either. It is at the center of the Eucharistic liturgy: “do this in memory of Me.” We gather each week in memory of Him. We consume His body and blood in memory of His Passion and Resurrection.