The Importance of Forgetting

Opening Letter in Landmark (Parish Magazine for St Mary's Whitkirk)

November 2009

We are used to being reminded of the importance of remembering at this time of year.  We begin the month by remembering the communion of saints in whose company we sing God’s praises.  We quickly turn our attention at All Souls Day to those we have known and hope have moved on to the greater glory to be revealed.  Liberation from gun powder, treason and plot comes to mind with bonfires and fireworks and we don’t have to work hard to bring this up to date.  The cost of our freedom in recent conflicts and all who bear the scars of warfare are remembered a few days later.  All of this is held in the theme of God’s Kingdom, which we seek and we pray will be our inspiration.  That is refreshed every time we celebrate the Eucharist and remember Christ in bread and wine (hopefully the wine will be returned shortly!).

With the importance of remembering in mind I was struck by an article in The Independent recently which spoke about how the internet will not let us forget some things.  Everything we do on the net is recorded in some format – from our random searches through Google, to emails mundane and profound sent to all and sundry.  The author was linking this with the importance of forgetting and how so many gigabytes of memory won’t let us forget that we searched for weight loss or the latest gadget on IWOOT (I want one of those.com – a must view site for all gadget fiends!).

Here we hit the balance between the importance of remembering and the importance of forgetting some things.  There are times we have made a fool of ourselves and to remember these all the time would destroy our self confidence.  There are things we have done that reveal a side of ourselves that needs to change and without remembering them we don’t actually deal with the root cause.  Then we need to move on and that requires forgetting.

So I find myself this year, as we approach the season of remembering, wondering about the importance of forgetting for our ability to move on and live renewed in God’s image.  To remember everything can become a hindrance to moving on; we become stuck in the past.  To remember nothing, though, means we learn nothing.

There are of course those who remember because they can’t forget.  They are haunted in the silent hours and by small triggers.  I once knew an elderly man who had been a member of the Special Forces.  He was the most gentle man you could meet.  A friend snapped his glasses case shut and he spun round and kicked it out of his hand.  He apologised saying that it sounded just like a German magazine being snapped into position and his response, 40 years later, was instant and instinctive.

Then there are those who are now finding that they can remember less through illness that is robbing them of so much.  The Archers (the long running Radio 4 soap) is presenting us with Jack Woolley as his Alzheimer's progresses.  The importance of forgetting here is to realise that for some remembering has become the problem and for their loved ones the source of great distress.

Homer Simpson famously said that when he takes new information in something else has to go to make space in his brain.  He is actually right because forgetting has a neurological function as our brains take in new information and something that we no longer need is replaced and the connections in our brain reconfigure.  Forgetting helps us move on and one of the problems with trauma is that it impedes this forgetting function and we become locked up in a cognitive prison in the process.

So as we remember, let us also forget!  The test is to ask how remembering helps us live now and for the future.  Are there lessons we need to learn?  Is life now so different that this particular point is no longer relevant?  Do we need to let go?  Memory is not a recording of the past, but something we recreate in our minds – so it actually changes over time as we replay and reinforce the mental structures that hold the story.

And there we have the most important clue in this balancing act of remembering and forgetting.  It is the story that shapes us.  The most important story of hope that guides us, that we ‘remember’, concerns Christ and the love of God that he reveals.  Some aspects of how that story has been conveyed in the past belong to the past and need forgetting or reshaping as we tell it anew in this generation.  Living in his light and hope involves both forgetting and remembering.  Welcome to the season of remembrance and forgetting!

© Ian Black 2009