Sometimes, forgetting seems a lot easier to do than remembering. Forgetting seems somehow inevitable. My brain is full from too many thoughts and too much information after so many decades of life. Forgetting is just part of the aging processes. Some things I just don’t want to remember, I want to will them out of my mind.

One question we can ask ourselves, though, is: what is worth remembering? When we ask that, some memories are going to stick and some are going to fade. And then we consider what is valuable, what is worth remembering, because the memory has something new to teach us about the world or about ourselves. Because the memory connects us to other people also of worth and value. And so we can slough off all that is worth forgetting. My wish for you is that you never forget that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so. Here is a sweet and humorous poem by Billy Collins (thanks to Deb Fitzloff for bringing it to my attention). You can also see the author read it himself by clicking this link https://www.britannica.com/video/164445/Billy-Collins-American-work-documentary-Poet-Laureate

“Forgetfulness”
by Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

It is as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and you watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have forgotten even how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

 

Blessings, Rev. Rita