Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Memory and Desire

TS Eliot said in "The Waste Land" "April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of dead land, mixing memory and desire."

Desire can feel like the enemy can't it? What do you want for? I really want a compost pile. I have wanted one for a long time. It hasn't happened yet. I find myself thinking about it. Wishing a had it. I also want a pool. I tried talking about it as though it already was once. I gave that up. I haven't stopped wanting a pool. I will sometimes forget that I want a compost pile and a pool. Maybe even for several weeks at ta time. Then I will throw a bunch of peels in the trash or tap the coffee grounds into the trash and think...."I wish I had a compost pile to put these in!" Just yesterday I was at the public pool with my friend Laura and I thought I wish we could finish a sentence without a kid saying, "Hi Mrs Mills" or "Hey, Mrs Irwin!" Now we love these students but moments like that mix memory with desire and I want a pool! These are small things. Somewhat meaningless. My life is wonderful without them. I know one day I will have them (at least the compost pile!)

I remember before I was married I always wanted to be loved. I knew there had to be a man out there that was just right for me. A man that would love me and yet spur me on to be all God wanted me to be. Many times I gave up. Then I would remember what it was I really wanted. In seasons of my life I didn't really have words for what I wanted it but in the stillness of my soul I dreamed of it. Ultimately what I want is to experience perfect love. Brian can not give me this...yet at moments it feels like it might be..this is a mixing of memory and desire. This remembering of Brian and his unconditional love and loving expressions stir up my memory for what my soul really wants.

Remembering is important. Sometimes we forget who God really is. Sometimes we forget because we are in a time of winter. We are just in a season of trying to survive. To make it day to day. God has more for us. We know it is true. Our memory of that is what makes us push through. To make it to spring...so eventually it will be summer. Spiritual discontentment are the aches that remind us...there is more to God than we know right now...more to God than we could ever understand..someday it will always be summer. Someday in our new Earth Jesus will be the Sun...until then we will have our memory stirred up in desire.

2 comments:

Carina said...

Lovely post! C.S. Lewis talks about a similar feeling we often have as humans. He says that nostalgia is really a part of our greater longing for heaven. We mistake it for a desire for the thing itself, but we invest the memory with beauty that it never truly had. What we really want is our perfect and eternal union with our Creator.

jamie said...

Just checkin' in on you guys. In April you struggled over continuing to blog...You wrote: He has done enough to sustain me for a lifetime. That brought up my own nostalgia. I have often said that my parents loved me enough in the first 46 years of my life to sustain me for a lifetime. I wish everyone could have that. God will provide that love if they will only accept it. In May, God spoke to you through the author's written word. In June you wrote words that would speak to me in July. We don't always know why we are to do something, we just keep on doin' it 'til God says that's enough..... Your blog is still producing fruit. Keep up the good work.