Remembering our Story
Along the way Jesus meets the Women of Jerusalem who weep for him in pity. Rather than thank them for their sympathy he surprisingly says, Weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children.
It is easier to weep for another’s sorrow than to recognize our own.
It is easier to look after someone else’s needs than to care for our own.
It is easier to be immersed in others problems than to face our own.
While each of us is a product of both our personal and ancestral past we can be trapped in either. Past issues that we deny and try to keep hidden will continue to influence our lives and so create the future that our todays become like our yesterdays. The past is never where we think we have left it but is ever present in the here and now. Our reactions reveal not the Truth but our truth and are simply re-enactments of what has gone before. It is from the past that we react while it is in the present that we relate and respond. In the words of Desmond Tuto:
None of us have the power to say, Let bye gones be bye gones and hey presto they become by gones. Our common experience is just the opposite, that the past far from disappearing or lying down and being quiet is embarrassingly persistent and will return to haunt us unless it has been dealt with adequately. Unless we are prepared to look the beast in the eye we will find it returns to hold us hostage.
If we don’t own our own story, our story will own us. Unless we understand our story it will play havoc with our life for the rest of our life.
Not only does our unresolved story influence our lives and be transmitted to others but it becomes the legacy of our children and so what one generation tries to forget another will be forced to remember.