THE WOUNDS
The French writer-politician André Malraux wites in his Anti-Memoirs, “One day it will be realized that men are distinguishable from one another as much by the forms their memories take as by their characters.” This is very important observation. The older we grow the more we have to remember, and at some point we realize that most, it not all, of what we have is memory. Our memory plays a central role in our sense of being. Our pains and joys, our feelings of grief and satisfaction, are not simply dependent on the events of our lives, but also, and even more so, on the ways we remember these events. The events of our lives are probably less important than the form they take in the totality of our story. Different people remember a similar illness, accident, success, or surprise in very different ways, and much of their sense of self derives less from what happened than from how they remember what happened, how they have places the past events into their own personal history.
It is not surprising, therefore, that most of our human emotions are closely related to our memory. Remorse is a bitting memory, guilt is an accusing memory, gratitude is a joyful memory, and all such emotions are deeply influenced by the way we have integrated past events into our way of being in the world. In fact, we perceive our world with our memories. Our memories help us to see and understand new impressions and give them a place in our richly varied life experiences.
I have always been fascinated by the way imigrants, especially Dutchmen respond to the U.S.A. when they come here for the first time. The first way they make themselves feel at home in their new country is to look at things which remind them of the old country. Then they start to see all the things which are larger, bigger, wider, and heavier that at home. Finally, often after several years, they begin to compare things within the country: the East with the West, the city with the countryside. When that happens then they are at home. Then they have built up a larger enough store of memories in the U.S.A to compare its different parts and aspects.
These observations show how crucial our memory is for the way we experience life. This is why, in all helping professions—such as medicine, psychiatry, psychology, social work—the first questions are always directed to the memory of the patient or client. “Please tell me your story. What brought you here? What are the events which led you to this place here and now?” And it is clear that what doctors and therapists hear about are not just events but memories of events.
It is no exaggeration to say that suffering we most frequently encounter in the ministry is a suffering of memories. They are the mounding memories that ask for healing. Feelings of alienation, loneliness, separation; feelings of anxiety, fear, suspicion; and related symptoms such as nervousness, sleeplessness, nailbiting—these all are part of the forms which certain memories have taken. These memories wound because they are often deeply hidden in the center of our being and very hard to reach. While the good memories may be present to us in outer signs such as trophies, decorations, diplomas, precious stones, vases, rings, and portraits, painful memories tend to remain hidden from us in the corner of our forgetfulness. It is hidden place that they escape healing and cause so much harm.
Our first and most spontaneous response to our undesirable memories is to forget them. When something painful has happened we quickly say to ourselves and to each other, “Let’s forget it, let’s act as if it did not happen, let’s not talk about it, let’s think about happier things.” We want to forget the pains of the past—our personal, communal, and national traumas—and live as if they did not really happen. But by not remembering them we allow the forgotten memories to become independent forces that can exert a crippling effect on our functioning as human being. When this happens, we become strangers to ourselves because we cut down our own history to a pleasant, comfortable size and try to make it conform to our own daydreams. Forgetting the past is like turning our most intimate teacher against us. By refusing to face our painful memories we miss the opportunity to change our hearts and grow mature in repentance. When Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick” (Mark 2.17), he affirms that only those who face their wounded condition can be available for healing and so enter into a new way of living.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Living Reminder: Service and Prayer in the Memory of Jesus Christ (Minneapolis: Seabury, 1977), 18-22.
The French writer-politician André Malraux wites in his Anti-Memoirs, “One day it will be realized that men are distinguishable from one another as much by the forms their memories take as by their characters.” This is very important observation. The older we grow the more we have to remember, and at some point we realize that most, it not all, of what we have is memory. Our memory plays a central role in our sense of being. Our pains and joys, our feelings of grief and satisfaction, are not simply dependent on the events of our lives, but also, and even more so, on the ways we remember these events. The events of our lives are probably less important than the form they take in the totality of our story. Different people remember a similar illness, accident, success, or surprise in very different ways, and much of their sense of self derives less from what happened than from how they remember what happened, how they have places the past events into their own personal history.
It is not surprising, therefore, that most of our human emotions are closely related to our memory. Remorse is a bitting memory, guilt is an accusing memory, gratitude is a joyful memory, and all such emotions are deeply influenced by the way we have integrated past events into our way of being in the world. In fact, we perceive our world with our memories. Our memories help us to see and understand new impressions and give them a place in our richly varied life experiences.
I have always been fascinated by the way imigrants, especially Dutchmen respond to the U.S.A. when they come here for the first time. The first way they make themselves feel at home in their new country is to look at things which remind them of the old country. Then they start to see all the things which are larger, bigger, wider, and heavier that at home. Finally, often after several years, they begin to compare things within the country: the East with the West, the city with the countryside. When that happens then they are at home. Then they have built up a larger enough store of memories in the U.S.A to compare its different parts and aspects.
These observations show how crucial our memory is for the way we experience life. This is why, in all helping professions—such as medicine, psychiatry, psychology, social work—the first questions are always directed to the memory of the patient or client. “Please tell me your story. What brought you here? What are the events which led you to this place here and now?” And it is clear that what doctors and therapists hear about are not just events but memories of events.
It is no exaggeration to say that suffering we most frequently encounter in the ministry is a suffering of memories. They are the mounding memories that ask for healing. Feelings of alienation, loneliness, separation; feelings of anxiety, fear, suspicion; and related symptoms such as nervousness, sleeplessness, nailbiting—these all are part of the forms which certain memories have taken. These memories wound because they are often deeply hidden in the center of our being and very hard to reach. While the good memories may be present to us in outer signs such as trophies, decorations, diplomas, precious stones, vases, rings, and portraits, painful memories tend to remain hidden from us in the corner of our forgetfulness. It is hidden place that they escape healing and cause so much harm.
Our first and most spontaneous response to our undesirable memories is to forget them. When something painful has happened we quickly say to ourselves and to each other, “Let’s forget it, let’s act as if it did not happen, let’s not talk about it, let’s think about happier things.” We want to forget the pains of the past—our personal, communal, and national traumas—and live as if they did not really happen. But by not remembering them we allow the forgotten memories to become independent forces that can exert a crippling effect on our functioning as human being. When this happens, we become strangers to ourselves because we cut down our own history to a pleasant, comfortable size and try to make it conform to our own daydreams. Forgetting the past is like turning our most intimate teacher against us. By refusing to face our painful memories we miss the opportunity to change our hearts and grow mature in repentance. When Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick” (Mark 2.17), he affirms that only those who face their wounded condition can be available for healing and so enter into a new way of living.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Living Reminder: Service and Prayer in the Memory of Jesus Christ (Minneapolis: Seabury, 1977), 18-22.
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