Previous Reflections
REFLECTIONS
June 26th, 2022"Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their: children after them…"
Deuteronomy 4:9
Remembering the Good Ole Days
More about memories. Sometimes they take us back to places we don’t want to go. But they also take us back to a place we call “the good ole days.” What happened to them? And what happened to “the good ole days” Mom and Dad remember, or those of my grandparents’ memories? There’s something about the past we long for life to be again.
But life has moved on, hasn’t it? Partly for the good. Partly not so good. Tragic accidents, economic crises, and natural disasters reshaped life for us. And technological advances? Well, it’s hard to fully grasp the impact of those on our way of life. But we can sum it up—the good ole days are waning from our memory, displaced by the realities of the present. God warned us about it: “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget…” Now, I wonder if our memories have forgotten too much before we shared them with our children.
God blessed us with free will; but He also warned of the consequences of our decisions. For falling prey to the serpent’s temptation, God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden. Paradise lost! But that’s not all: To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.” (Genesis 3:16)
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife … / “Cursed is the ground because of you; / through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.” (Genesis 3:17)
To help prioritize our decisions, God set some standards to live by: have no other Gods before me; honor your father and mother; remember the sabbath; and to love your neighbor. The good ole days seemed to abide by those standards. God asks us to share our memories about them with our children. Unshared memories die, and with them, so do the good ole days.
So, what’s the answer to return to the good ole days? It may seem that joy is pleasure we take from life; but joy comes from what we give to it. Love God. Love your neighbor. Might those God given commands be the recipe for the Good Ole Days?
Unshared recipes pass away.
“You are the light of the world,”
Richard +
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