Sunday Meditation: "Soon we shall die and all memory [of us] will have left the earth."

"Soon we shall die and all memory of those five [who fell from the bridge] will have left the earth; and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten." 

That quote from the last chapter of The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder struck me this afternoon as I sat on the front porch reading and listening to the rain. How silly it is to take ourselves too seriously. Most of us will soon be forgotten after we die, even by members of our own family. I only know the name of one of my great grandparents, John Schneider. I know almost nothing about him or about his wife. I know the names of a few of my grandmother's siblings on my dad's side. Uncle Edgar was a Jesuit who I met once or twice, but she was the youngest of thirteen and I never met most of her brothers and sisters. The generation beyond remains shrouded in the mists of past time.

The rain has stopped already and soon will evaporate, just like the memories of those who in their own time were important and loved by someone.

A few are remembered, the great ones in literature and music, science and medicine. We remember Homer, Shakespeare, and Dante for their great literary works; Bach and Beethoven whose music still thrills the heart; Louis Pasteur for the cure for rabies and Sir Alexander Fleming for the discovery of penicillin. Historical figures who made the world better or worse like George Washington and Adolph Hitler. But even many of them are forgotten. Do a man on the street interview and see how young people can answer the question, "Why was (take your pick) famous? Will they be able to answer? And those are the folks who made the history books. How many of us will live in memory for more than a few generations in the minds of our families?

I often pray for all my ancestors who passed on the faith, but I have no names to attach to my gratitude. I pray for everyone who has ever touched my life, but many of them are nameless people who cashed me out at the grocery store or sold me stamps at the post office or just gave me a smile as I passed them on the street. They are the nameless somebodies who touched me for good or ill. I pray for them all.

To forget can also be a blessing: to forget the cruel slap, the stabbing word, the deliberate slight, the jealous or vindictive act. The mind may have a hard time forgetting, but what a grace when the heart forgets and forgives. 

Following the quote about being forgotten, Wilder puts in the mouth of the Abbess Dona Maria these words:

"But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival the only meaning."

Those brief sentences complete and summarize the message of the novel. The 1958 film version with Theodore Bikel follows the book closely and is excellent. You can view it on YouTube. There are several other versions as well which I haven't seen. 

Realizing that we will soon be forgotten is an invitation to humility. What a blessing if we can forget ourselves more often and think of others. Too many of us make ourselves the center of the universe expecting the entire world to revolve around us. To combat that we can embrace every slight as a challenge to stop gazing at our navel, to thank God for sharing in his passion even in a small way, and to embrace humility. 

I often pray the Litany of Humility and it alway gives me a twinge. That is one prayer that God promises to answer and one guaranteed to be uncomfortable when He says yes. How many of us really want others to be loved, esteemed, praised, honored, and consulted more than ourselves?

Let's pray the Litany of Humility anyway!