Oh, for a beautiful memory!

Last updated on: June 20, 2014 at 10:06 am by Marc

Oh, for a beautiful memory! 2014-06-20T10:06:37-04:00 Marc

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Somewhere at the tail-end of trying to memorize a poem…

there lives the dearest freshness deep down things…

…it strikes me that memory is not, contrary to popular description, “like storing information on a computer.” Computer-storage is like whatever memory is.

Computers store, but do not memorize, for our memories do not sit discreetly as Microsoft Word files in the corner of some tidied desktop, waiting to be accessed. They leaps into our hearts. They invade our minds, unasked for. Memory is not a “saved” thing, curled up and dried like a packet of sea-monkeys, waiting to be dredged into existence by the life-giving double-click. Memory is a living thing.

So I am laboring over these lines…

and though the last lights off the black west went / oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs…

…the tumultuous gorgeous lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins, not merely to impress women, but also to whittle a section of my brain-space into the shape of these words, that they might leap into my heart throughout the workaday day. That, faced with death, boredom, and stress, there would well up not an abstract, bitter anxiety but a “Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee, / nor untwist, slack they may be, these last threads of man in me / nor say I cannot / I can!” Oh, for a beautiful memory! I want words, up from the darkness like fresh food growing from seeds I planted, like soup-kitchens in times of famine. (And there’s no way that last bit of Hopkins is verbatim, but I can’t google it in the midst of praising memory! I’d just hate myself.)

We choose what goes into our stomachs with care, though our digestive systems will pass what is not good for us out as waste. How much more, then, should we contemplate, deliberate, and labor in choosing what goes into our minds, where what goes in sticks? But, as it turns out, we eat organic carrots and watch porn — happy hipsters, all. My memory, at the very least, is not yet a wellspring of nourishment for the journey. Somewhere inside me, as if cranially carved, I carry the opening verse to “Baby Got Back,” the entire dialogue of “The Big Lebowski,” and several scarring scenes from a Twilight movie (don’t ask (alright, fine, the one where the vampire baby is eating the (vampire?) mom before werewolf-guy starts hitting on the newborn matricidal vampire baby. (All while everyone is looking surly and drinking blood juiceboxes))).

“You know,” the Church says, “I could have told you this already. As with everything else, I am your salvation from the mediocrity of an age that allows the trends and attractions to mold the mind whichever way they will. I have given you the Psalms, the Divine Office — I have made my prayers prayers of repetition, daily, cyclical, breaking into your consciousness like waves, shaping you as water shapes the rock, that in difficult times there would spring, not the lyrics to songs you don’t even like, or the scenes from movies that make you despair, but “God, come to my assistance / Lord, make haste to help me!” and that in joyful times, instead blankly referencing pop culture, you would say, as if I were speaking in you, “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good / For his love endures forever.” My ritual shapes men — therefore, pray, and pray regularly, that on your deathbed your mind might have such a consistency as to make Heaven and your head unoffensive to each other.”

But it’s becoming difficult to do: PART 2: THE FACEBOOK TIMELINE

Time

Previous Post

June 17, 2014

Women Swiftly Running Out Of Things That Aren't Sexy

Next Post

June 20, 2014 The Facebook Timeline and the Disintegration of Memory

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Another Look Atheism Bad Catholics Beauty Communio Crookedhart Destupidification Exiting the Culture Wars Gender Theory That Doesn't Suck How To Language Liturgy! Love One Another Marriage Equality Modesty Music Objectification pop culture Poverty Sacraments Sex Technology The Best Religion in the World The Erotic Phenomenon Time Uncategorized Virtue Ethics That Don't Suck Winning the Culture Wars

Select a Month January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 July 2016 June 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

The night of the Passover what did Israel have to do so their firstborn wouldn't die?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Take a Bath Go to Sleep Put blood around the door of their homes Change Clothes