Dealing With The Past: Conclusion

(MENAFN- The Post) Henri J.M. Nouwen was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest and theologian who authored 40 books and hundreds of smaller pieces. In discussing the issue how can we deal with past memories that are too painful to bear, I have found invaluable guidance in his book The Inner Voice of Love, a collection of a hundred pieces, each around a page long, that have been described as“spiritual imperatives.”

On the book's back cover Nouwen's publisher says,“This is Henri Nouwen's 'secret journal'. It was written during the most difficult period of his life, when, following the breakdown of a close relationship, he suddenly lost his self-esteem, his energy to live and work, his sense of being loved, even his hope in God. Although he experienced excruciating anguish and despair, he was still able to keep a journal in which he wrote each day a spiritual imperative to himself, which emerged from his conversations with friends.”

Nouwen himself explains:“Today, the time when I wrote these spiritual imperatives seems far away and long ago. Reading them now, eight years later, makes me aware of the radical changes I have undergone. I moved from anguish to freedom, from depression to peace, from despair to hope.

What once seemed such a curse has become a blessing. All the agony that threatened to destroy my life now seems like the fertile ground for greater trust, stronger hope, and deeper love.”Advertisement

There are so many passages from Nouwen's book that speak to my present topic and that I could happily and fruitfully quote. But I've chosen just one that really says it all:

“Don't simply try to block out memories of the past, to bury these memories. You have to live through your pain gradually and thus to deprive it of its power over you. Yes, you must go into the place of your pain, but only when you have gained some new ground [through strengthened faith]. When you enter your pain simply to experience it in its rawness, it can pull you away from where you want to go.”

Nouwen then says more on“the need to root oneself in the 'new place', [that is, strengthened faith]. The more roots you have in the new place, the more capable you are of mourning the loss of the old place and letting go of the pain that lies there. You cannot mourn something that has not died.

In other words, in dealing with painful memories of the past – especially memories of things loved that are now lost - it's no good trying to wipe the slate clean; rather, the slate must be viewed through a new lens. In short, Nouwen's book is a lovely piece of work-and a life-enhancing one-that I enthusiastically recommend to all my readers.

To be secular for a moment, I guess that underlying everything I've said over the last few weeks is the recognition that, on account of our subjectivity, we experience different stretches of time with differing degrees of weight and density. Take it from me, standing in the cold and rain in England waiting for a bus to arrive, ten minutes can seem like an hour

In respect of objective reality, there's a famous saying attributed to Lenin, with reference to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, though there's no evidence he actually said or wrote it:“Decades can go by when nothing happens. And there are weeks when decades happen.”

But let's end by putting all of this in perspective, and here I quote 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 8:“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.”

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