"Remember" | Reflection by Karen Isaacs

To think and write about word with as many meanings as remember has is a daunting task. I checked out its etymology and looked at multiple definitions. It helped but I was still left with my own thoughts and questions about remember.

I’ve taught students about how we perceive things and attach meaning to them and how we bring them up again and again in ways that influence our behavior and communication and relationships. I’ve questioned why it seems I can remember so clearly those moments that I now find excruciatingly embarrassing. Why don’t those fade? Why can we remember something so vividly and others barely? A friend of mine can recall something we did together that I have totally forgotten. Even if we discuss it, it is at best a vague recollection.

But to me the word is more than just about personal feelings and happenings, but those of society and the world as a whole. The words “Never Forget” used about the Holocaust are telling us to remember. History is about remembering – not just the good things but the bad.  Santayana, Churchill, and Edmund Burke and others have all said a variation of “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”  And I’ve always liked the Karl Marx quote, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Remember is a large part of my faith. It is not just to remember the psalms and gospels, to remember the prayers and hymns. To me it is to remember what I view as the central essence of my faith – to fulfill my responsibility to others and to society, to practice the empathy and forgiveness of Jesus, to strive to be better than I am and to give back. If I can remember those then I can feel that I am fulfilling my faith.

Photo Caption: Wedding photo of my grandparents, who I never knew. It was taken in Brooklyn around 1896 or so. Sophius Michel Emilius Jorgensen and Sophia Kristiansen. He emigrated from Denmark and she from Sweden.

Words in the Wilderness - Walk through the season of Lent with Trinity, one word at a time. Every day (except on Sundays) we will post a photo and a brief refection written by someone in our Trinity community. https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/words-in-the-wilderness