I’ve often wondered if I could go back in time, what
would I be able to change without altering the future in some unspeakable
way? I’ve heard it called the butterfly
effect. If on our jaunt into the past we
smush one butterfly, change something infinitesimal, as days and weeks and
years pass, that tiny change would alter the future radically.
But I’ve known people, myself included, who try to live
in the now acting as if parts of our past didn’t happen. We try to forget that moment of weakness or
arrogance or foolishness. Some of those
moments are so powerful that we wince or worry or dream about them. They may be buried by the monster dandruff of
time and new acquaintances, logistical alterations, behavioral switches, new
habits, new jobs, but those moments, those pot holes, those choices, those
lapses, those horrors are still there.
Whether we like it or not, now is an amalgam of then’s
that are the raw material for now. No
matter how we’d like to make them go away, they are part of the bed rock that
our center hall colonial of now is built on.
When I went to a reunion of my graduating class from
High School, it was one of those moments of embarrassment and gratitude all
stirred into the same pot. They all knew
me, geek, fencer, football team mascot (a great way to meet girls), singer,
proto hippie, etc. High School was a
time of devastating awkwardness and loneliness.
It was full of those moments I would have gladly altered, removed from
my time stream like teeth crooked and painful.
But the reunion revealed less pain than nostalgia and an amazing sense
of gratitude. Gratitude for what that
time taught me, gave me as tools for the future and in retrospect laughter at
our mutual silliness and audacity. It
was an amazing experience, especially since I had a lot more hair than most of
the guys.
In my first book I recounted this story from Luke’s
gospel about the ten lepers from the point of view of one of the lepers who
didn’t go back to thank Jesus. He couldn’t
because he wanted to leave the horror of that part of his life behind him. But no matter how he tried, it was there,
following him, polluting him, holding him back.
I do PTSD therapy for people who have been through
horror and find themselves caught in those moments when the world stopped
making sense and caved in on them. The
chief therapy is to get them to walk through the moment again and again until
they can allow it to become a memory not a living nightmare. They have to go back, they have to remember
it to allow themselves to face the now.
A now that includes that moment in the past.
We are Christians.
At the center of our faith is the cross, a traumatic horror. Our job is to embrace that event and accept
our culpability in it. Then we can move
on to the Resurrection and transformed life. They are all a part of who and
what we are. They all make the bedrock
of our faith upon which we build our hope and our abundant life. Not only can we go back, we have to if we are
to accept ourselves, forgive ourselves and others, and accept the miracle of
life and life abundant that blooms before us every day.
At the reunion some of the same tormentors that used to
make me sweat tried to pick on me again.
I laughed with them. There we
stood laughing. But I noticed they were
wondering what the heck happened to the geek.
I guess I grew up.
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