"Thoughts, meditations, and musings about living the GodLife"

Friday, February 26, 2010

History Lesson


"The certainty of history seems to be in direct inverse ratio to what we know about it." Anonymous

Lately I've spent some time musing through old photographs of my family. I can still remember that Easter day when my mother took our picture in front of our house all dressed up and ready for church (that's me on the left squinting!). Each picture I held of my son and daughter as infants or kids growing up tends to immerse me in dates and events, in persons and in circumstances - in my own personal history (that's Julie holding our Marine son, Jeffry, as a baby). I struggle to recall the details of those "good old days" but that's where the family historian steps in - Julie. She has a gift for remembering what someone wore to a particular event. I can't even remember the event!
We tend to look at our personal histories through the eyes of regret and what if's. I wish I would have done this here or there. What if I had done this instead of that. We recall historical events both national, local, or family, that affected us in some way. What gets lost in the mix of the "certainty of history" is the inverse ratio of the presence of God. God met Julie and I in the ordinary and extraordinary occurrences that made up the stuff of our daily lives. The history of our 31 years we've known each other is the medium in which God worked, just as paint and canvas is the medium in which Rembrandt made created works of art. We cannot get closer to God by distancing ourselves from the perceived messes of our personal history. They are all part of his presence we sometimes forget.

We have so many stories to tell. Each one is a tribute that there is no such thing as secular history in our lives. None. Everything that happened, happened in a personal world penetrated by God. Our stories may not always include God so it is sometimes easy to forget that God is always the invisible and mostly silent presence in everything that took place. God is never absent from these stories and never peripheral to them. In fact to pay attention to these people and events in our past was to recognize a higher purpose to stay alert to God in the now.

We tend to develop the mindset of our cultural historians who would view our past with a God as not involved or present. We tend to tell stories through politics and economics, human interest, and societal conditions. Where were you when JFK was shot? Do you remember the great blizzard of 1978? What was your reaction to 9-11? Then if we have a mind for it, we go ahead and conveniently fit God in somewhere or other.

The truth is, that history teaches us everything including the future.

And that lesson is that God is here, past, present, and future.

Can you see His fingerprints?