Psalm 66: 16-20; Acts 17: 26-29

Memory care

There is an assisted living facility near our house and you pass it when you walk to the grocery story.  It’s kind of the place you hope you won’t have to go some day.  It advertises “memory care.” It is a common advertisement. But we were wondering the other day when we walked by: ”isn’t a bit of a deceptive slogan?” They’re not taking care of memories; they are taking care of people who have let go of their memories for one reason or another.  However, even people with significantly reduced memories can hold on to things that really matter. Mark Ralls writes (The Christian Century, May 14, 2014). “I love you a little, I love you big, I love you like a little pig.” During my visit to the nursing home that afternoon, I must have heard this sweet, odd rhyme more than a hundred times. I was sitting in the atrium, talking to a distinguished, older man I had come to visit… But that particular day we were not sitting there alone. Near us sat a woman, another resident, wearing a nondescript pastel blouse and a broad, broad smile.  Though the woman sat close enough to touch, she expressed no interest in us or in our conversation. She just stared out the window and said these childlike words:”I love you a little, I love you big.“ She repeated them again and again. “I love you like a little pig…. “ As I left the nursing home, my curiosity got the better of me. I searched for a nurse… ”Could I ask you an odd question?” “The woman who sits in the atrium. She says this rhyme over and over. Do you know why she does this? “ The nurse smiled and repeated the words with a dramatic flair:”I love you a little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig!” She had obviously heard the rhyme thousands of times. …”That’s Thelma,” she explained. “She taught first grade for more than 30 years. Her little rhyme was her way of greeting the children every morning. As she helped them remove their coats, she would whisper those words in every little ear. It was her way to let each child know s/he possessed a special place in her heart.” Thelma’s mind was ravaged by dementia, but here was this single holdout from her memory.”  Friends, Thelma has forgotten almost everything except the most central part of her story and that was her identity as a loving teacher.

As I was thinking about today’s worship, I realized that today is my mother’s birthday.  It is nearly five years since she died. Made me think about memory and what we hold on to.  It so happens also that I had to go through some old papers the other day I found a stack of her medical bills and reimbursement slips as well her Dutch online banking card to an account that has long since been closed. I am sure many of you can relate to that. There are these vivid memories that stay with us.  Some things are so tangible and unmistakable.  But are these unmistakable, tangible things really the things that we ought to be remembering about people? What really matters?  Since we can’t remember everything, how can we take care of our memories? In other words, how do we do memory care? I think the first thing we must do is find and hold on to the person’s narrative, the small stream of water that trickles through the landscape they helped shape in one way or another.  The medical bills don’t tell that story, neither do the last days of their lives. It’s that picture that emerges when you connect all the dots on a number drawing.  The second thing is even more important and that is how does that narrative of a person’s life fit into the narrative or story of God, the one who sets the parameters of our lives, the One in Whom Paul says:” we live and move and have our being?”

(Philip Yancey (‘What Art can’t do’ in “best Spiritual Writing 2013)writes: “)The novelist Reynolds Price once remarked that there is a single sentence that above all, people crave from stories: the Maker of all things loves and wants me. Christians still believe that.” Psalm 66 reminds us that God does not forget us in spite of that not so bad word for all the bad we do:”iniquity.” That is something worth reflecting on, friends. How do these stories of people whom we cherish fit into the palm of God’s hand, into the greater purpose of creation. May God inspire us.