T
his week marks a milestone. Friday is my 20th High School reunion up in Pennsylvania. I realize that for many of you, twenty years is just a fraction of the years since your own days in high school, but it’s still a significant number. It doesn’t make me feel old, per se, but I do wonder where twenty years have gone. I’m not aware of it being a fast two decades, but it doesn’t seem to have been slow either. I once heard a banker, referring to retirement, proclaim, “A million dollars isn’t what it used to be!” Well, as I sit here and think about it, twenty years isn’t what it used to be either.
Again, I’m no Rip van Winkle by any means, but I have enough age on me that I am hitting some decent numbers in terms of history. 20 years since high school, 10 years a priest, 3 years at Christ Church (not as impressive a number, but one of this week’s anniversaries, nonetheless.) I have never been one to live in the past; I don’t look back on any period of my life as my golden days (yet), and it would be unlikely that high school will ever rate as such. In some ways, milestone anniversaries are not that significant, but in others, they are absolutely important and carry a great deal of meaning.
For example, billions and billions of various events have taken place on any given day, but we don’t remember most of them. We don’t keep track of the fact that it has been two weeks since our last cheeseburger. We don’t remember that it was this date last year that we responded to that email about the usher schedule. We don’t even remember all the potentially meaningful world events; only a few make the cut. The 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster will make the cut for many this week, but the anniversary of federal troops storming the Montgomery Ward headquarters in 1944 won’t. Some will remember that this is the week that George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States, in New York City, but few will remember the anniversary of the Mutiny on the Bounty, on which books and movies were later based.
We tend to remember anniversaries of things that have a great deal of meaning to us; rites of passages, moments of incredible
joy, moments of incredible loss and pain, or moments of national importance. When we recall how many decades it has been since some event, it is a way of acknowledging the passing of time. It is also a way of acknowledging that we are living and surviving. It is a way of noting changes in the world around us or in ourselves. It is a way of reminding us of our mortality. Such anniversaries remind us of all sorts of things, some of which bring nostalgic sighs, others tears of joy, and others a sense of wonderment.
Reflecting on the past is a part of living. Forging meaningful memories is a natural and healthy function of our brain and our psyche. Sometimes, such reflections allow us to daydream a bit, to wonder what might have happened had life or events not taken a particular turn. We remember some things so as not to repeat them. We remember some things because we can’t bear the thought of forgetting them. As J.R.R. Tolkein wrote in the Lord of the Rings, “And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth…[before passing] out of all knowledge.”
Hopefully, reflecting on the past helps us shape the future. We can learn from past mistakes, we can be inspired by turning points in history - the world’s or ours - and we can reach for goals that allow us to visit the success of the past. We can give thanks for the things we can celebrate and ask forgiveness for the milestones we are less than proud of. Where we have been can often influence where we are going, which can result in either a positive or a negative outcome depending on us and what we do with the past.
Perhaps when milestones roll around we can ask ourselves why they are milestones at all? What is the meaning in the memory or the commemoration? Where is/was God in the midst of such events, and how have they shaped us; how do they continue to shape us? Our milestones may not mean a lot to others. Our life events are often lost among the billions of others’ life events. But they are important to us, if for no other reason than they remind us who we are and what is important to us.
I don’t have strong feelings about my high school years one way or another. They weren’t my glory days, and they weren’t torture either. I’m not heading north for my twentieth reunion. I am curious about some of the people I went to school with so long ago, but not enough to make the trip. It’s fun to think about what the world was like, and how we dressed and talked twenty years ago. It’s funny to think about how “old” the music we listened to sounds to my kids. I’m grateful for the experiences of my teenage years, and I was glad to “grow up” and move on with my life. High School history has not turned to legend, nor to myth yet, and I haven’t forgotten the most important parts of it. I am in contact, even if it is infrequently, (thank you Facebook), with most of the people I care to stay in touch with from those days. Perhaps I will want to go to my fortieth reunion, twenty years from now. It’ll be here before I know it. Twenty years isn’t what it used to be.
Tom+
This is another Day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.