New Year’s Eve.06                                            December 31, 2006

The Scribe who has been trained for the Kingdom of God
         brings out from his storeroom things that are old
                  and things that are new.

When I first read St. Augustine,
         I was surprised that he went on chapter after chapter,
         struggling for a philosophical understanding of memory.
When I first did the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola,
         I was surprised that they were disciplined practices
                  to cultivate the imagination.

What did memory and imagination have to do with Christianity?
The answer is “everything.”
We live in time.
New Year’s Eve is an occasion to mark time.
It is a point on the calendar when, like the 2-faced god Janus,
         we look backward at where we have been
         and forward at where we are going.

To live in time mindfully
         involves three processes;
         memory, imagination, and interpretation.//

In our Gospel lesson,
         the Scribe brings out the old – that’s memory.
And he brings out the new – that’s imagination.
Then, being a Scribe, he interprets them
         because Scribes are interpreters.
He discerns what the memories and imaginings are about.

Remembering is a foundational spiritual practice of our faith.
         St. Theresa called it recollection.
         St. Ignatius called it examination of conscience,
                   or more accurately, consciousness.
It is a good thing to be still and remember,
         to deliberately think back on our past.

We all remember, but undisciplined remembering
         is random, chaotic, and apt to be selective.
We are apt to remember only those events that fit
         a story the world has told us,
                   especially a story the world has told us
                            about ourselves.

Spiritual recollection is actually the oppoiste\
It replays the past as fully as possible,
         and interprets it according to a different story

                   – the story of salvation

                   – a story of creation, fall, enslavement and liberation,
                   of Incarnation, Atonement, and spiritual vitality.
We sift through our memories,
         we find and we label
                   each moment of grace when something decent
                   or beautiful or gentle touched our lives.

We also find and we label
         each moment in which we are somehow stuck

                   – unable to move past so we keep experiencing it..
U2 calls it “stuck in a moment and you can’t get out of it.”
That’s a spot of enslavement and we pray for liberation.
We label each moment that has left us wounded,
         and we pray for healing.

The Scribe also brings out of his storeroom
         that which is new – we dare to imagine.
Of course we already imagine the future.
But if we do in an undisciplined way,
        we will imagine that future as a story
                the world has already told us.
Maybe it’s a Horatio Alger story of ego-accomplishments.
Maybe it’s a gloomy tragedy.

Spiritual imagination asks God to show us
        a better future – a better version of ourselves.
It is an exercise in hope
        that rejects the world’s life script of gloom.

In Jeremiah, the Lord said,
       Do not let your prophets and your diviners . . . . deceive you . . .
       for it is a lie which they are prophesying to you. . .
       I did not send them . . .
       For I know the plans I have for you (says the Lord)
       plans for welfare and not for evil,
       to give you a future and a hope.”

We imagine becoming who God wants us to be.
We imagine knowing the joy God wants to give us.
We imagine opening our hearts to each other and to God
       to receive abundant life.

So if you are not going off to New Year’s Eve revelries,
       this is a perfect night to remember, imagine,
                and interpret both past and future
                as parts of God’s plan of salvation.
If you are off to revelry, have fun,
        but take some time tomorrow or the next day
        to remember, to imagine,
        and to interpret your life anew

                 – not in the world’s way

                 – but in God’s.

                                           Amen.