TheBanyanTree: Into the Past

[Theta Brentnall]

I keep a little book of prayers and sayings that touch me.  One of them 
is a little prayer by someone named M. Hancock:

We thank Thee, Lord, for Memory - to live again the past,
  that in remembering bygone days the fruits of joy shall last.
But for the power to forget, we thank Thee even more.
The stings, the slights, the hurts, the wounds, can hurt us never more.

I like "Thanks for the Memories", too.

Some of mine:
Darling Lizzie at the age of three, after being told she has to eat her 
peas or she'll sit at the table until the cows come home.  After a few 
minutes, saying she had heard someone at the door, and running to open 
it, then peeking her head around the corner to announce, "It's the cows, 
Daddy!  They've come home!  Can I be done with the peas now?"
Darling Maggie at the same age, falling down on her bottom and then 
telling her dad that her butt hurt and slyly asking, "want to kiss it?"
Doing tai chi on a stretch of deserted beach in Oregon, and finishing 
the pattern only to realize that a whole flock of sea gulls are silently 
sitting on the sand a few feet away, watching me.
Holding my babies the minute after they were born.  Watching my 
son-in-law fall instantly and completely in love with his brand new 
daughter the moment he took her in his arms.
Standing in the rain, soaked to the skin while I watched a thunderstorm 
sending lightning dancing across the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains
Scuba diving on a coral reef and just hanging, suspended and unmoving, 
in front of the coral until everything forgot I was there, then watching 
all the tiny, shy creatures going about their lives.

The more I remember, the more I remember.  It's all good.


Theta



On 1/4/2010 4:44 AM, NancyIee at aol.com wrote:
> One of my favorite songs is "Thanks For The Memories."  For all the  people
> in life who make their mark, are loved (or not) and who made a  difference.
>   And, thank heaven for the recordings, DVDs, CDs, that allow us  to refresh
> as needed.
>
> And, thank heaven for the internal "recorder" that keep on the top of all
> life's memories, moments of extraordinary loveliness that I can draw on,
> like my  secret savings account, when the bills or angsts of life become too
> heavy.
>
> Such as:  kite flying on the hill behind the barn, the secret beneath  the
> little apple tree we planted down on the triangle, swimming with horses, the
>   time Pammy tied Drum, her young horse-in-training to the swing set and he
> ran away with it, the saga of the lamb, the summer we had the fawn in the
> orchard, chasing runaway and maverick horse down the road in the car and
> timing  him at 35 mph for a full half mile. The birthdays and peanut surprize,
> lima  beans under the table, the hen house that became the childrens'
> adventure place,  the crashing of tornadoes, putting up hay, learning to drive on
> the ice and the  flipping of a car, and holidays with us all there.
>
> Those and all those little mind "trailers" we keep on hand in our memories.
>   Some sadness and badness, to be sure, but on the whole, we made in .
> .together.
>
> Thanks for the memories.
>
>