“Do you remember..?” From Phil Collins to Michael Jackson or the question you just asked someone last week, do you remember is an attempt to bring back to someones memory that which took place in the past. As a lover of words, I caress them passionately and sometimes find them somewhat misleading. In the case of remembering, as the word is defined, we are simply recalling, bringing back to an awareness an event, person, place or thing. If you will allow, I’d like usher you into a literary laboratory of word dissection. There’s something much deeper inside the notion of remembering. Please walk with me a little distance, if you please. At any point you feel labored, you may take your leave as you will. Mine is a journey of invitation, not coercion.
This story is shared in the Bible. “As a final and specially prepared Passover supper was ending, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and shared it with his Disciples, saying, “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19) This occasion, with the disciples being admonished to eat, is known as the last supper. For context I am placing next to this one, another passage from the Bible. Stay with me now. Ezekiel 37:1-14. As a child, I was totally fascinated by this strange event that told of dry bones coming back together, replete with sinew, skin, and eventually breath to stand again as a mighty army. AWESOME! The part that somehow made the story hit with even more resonance was that the bones were defined as dry; any semblance of succulence…gone. At the bequest of the spirit of God by way of Ezekiel these bones came back together. Bone to bone, socket to socket, joint to joint, connected with muscle, draped with skin and filled with innards and fluids, all to the right body and form. I would just love to see that animated! James Cameron, are you tuning in? A great and powerful story, illustrative or not, that points to a great and powerful story. One is which you an I are central players, if we choose to be…or in some cases it will just up and choose us.
Remember! Remember! Can we dig into it? Re refers to about, concerning or to do again such as ‘retake a test’ or ‘remake a bed.’ Member refers to a part or organ of the body; a portion or unit of something. In that frame of mind, say the word remember. Remember – to member again. To put back together, to reassemble that which is separated from itself. The dry bones in the valley (the lowest point) were re-membered. Put back together by request of the voice emanating from the mind, powered by the spirit (of God/Divine Life Force) through Ezekiel. Now that we have reconfigured, in our minds, the word remembrance as a re-membering, we can see that it is much more than the limitations of a mental recall. Something is supposed to follow. That which follows in manifestation is far more potent that the mental image. In fact, that is the sole purpose of the mental recall. In the story when Jesus said “This do in remembrance of me” he knew he was going to be no more. No more with them. Therefore at the taking on of food (symbolic of anything that feeds us), of sustenance that sustains and gives LIFE to the body, we are being pushed beyond the ritualistic ceremony that we call communion a few services out of the year. Perhaps it was a real remembering – establishing the power of Divinity back together within us. If we allow it to stop in the mind, the idea remains just that, an idea, a lofty concept, a doctrine, dry at best. But if we act on it, remember it in the true sense of the word and breathe life into, we will bear witness to the unfolding of a power beyond the walls of the mind. Beyond our imagination.
“Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost, we are cut off from our parts” (Ezekiel 37:11) Does that not sound like the state of affairs in our world? What are our parts if it’s not our members. What are our members? Everything that made us who we are, from our ancestors and the soil beneath our feet to the Divine Life Force that courses through our bodies and everything in between. Anything that Life Force is capable of doing we can do too if we would only remember. In order for a remembrance there has to be harmony of the members convening in true communion – the correct placement of each part to the next. Imagine if we took that beyond the symbolic ritual and brought is to life in our waking world. Do you want to remember..?
Notes of A Native Son 