Epiphany Of Remembering

There is more than one way of remembering.

I love the Eucharist, bread broken, wine shared.
It is us remember-ing Jesus’ broken body;
and Christ re-membering his broken body, the Church
(a community broken by the distances between us –
both physical and inter-personal,
by geography and by the falling short in our relationships –
made whole, made one again).
The interplay between his once-and-for-all act
and his ongoing repeated-over-and-over action.

There is more than one way of remembering.

We can remember relationships in a way that keeps our focus on the past,
a past that we cast as being better than our present,
and in so doing keep our present (increasingly) broken.
Or we can remember relationships in a way that draws on the past
in order to resource the present,
and in so doing find (increasing) healing for our present brokenness.

I have lived long enough, and moved often enough,
to know what it is to invest in another,
to be invested in by another,
to have dear friends,
and then to be separated.
I have chosen to remember in ways that have kept me broken;
and I have chosen to remember in ways through which God has restored wellbeing to me
(which is not to say that the separations get any less painful…).
And I hope that I am learning to do the latter more and the former less.

Now we are in Nottingham (for two years, before we move again…), and Jo and I are making friends who are dear to us, and whose friendship will carry on beyond this time and place.
But our daughter is just at the start of this journey
into the life of friendship
(our sons, too young to have begun at all, really),
and she is finding leaving old friends
and making new friends
much harder…