Seeing the old new

I want to see the familiar in a novel light. To glance around my world and absorb all those things that daily sit before me but frequently allude my attention. I want to see old things in new ways.

I feel this way singing along with Ingrid to Steve Green songs: "First John four, verse sixteen, G-o-d is l-o-v-e!" And this is the very word of God.

I feel this way watching Lord of the Rings, watching Frodo's weary resistance and Sam's unflagging encouragement. How I see the struggle and support in this world of sin.

I feel this way talking to people I haven't seen in years, joyfully discovering that experiences that got left behind are not disintegrated in memory. People value and remember.

I feel this way sitting in the blessed air conditioning of my mom's mini van, knowing the gears are clicking so much swifter these days, that this as I know it will soon adjust.

I am experiencing the joy in reflection and remembering, cultivating in these trenches I laid when these memories were first planted. I am seeing the old growing into something new, and I am understanding that vitality is wisdom, and it is good that we not forget.

A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmán, as if pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. [Out of the Silent Planet, CS Lewis]