What Do I Want to Leave Behind?
The fires we had in our area a few years ago ravaged the neighborhood. It looked like a war zone. Fortunately, we had not built our home yet. We had the beginnings of a house pad, a deck and a grill. The fireman used our house pad as a staging area and saved several houses nearby. Even so, some 250 homes were lost. Nature has made a comeback over the last few years. In fact, you have to look hard to see any evidence of the fires. There is one stump that I walk by on a regular basis that reminds me of the loss and destruction. It stands as a prompt to be grateful and to have compassion for all the folks experiencing wildfires in our nation and in Europe. Life can change on a dime, can't it?
Remnants
The charred stump statuary speaks
with a loud, questioning voice.
It asks, "What do you want to leave behind?"
"What needs to be rebuilt in your life
when destruction and dismantling visit you?"
"What messages will you leave for others?"
Loss is not the final word.
Change is inevitable.
Nature finds a way.
Life is more than a remnant.
It is always renewing itself.
New life is waiting to burst forth
even in the weeds and burn scars.
Time and patience make for
a healing pathway.
Be curious. Don't just ask why,
ask why not?
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Possibilities are all around.
What remains? It is not just a stump.
It is a messenger of endurance
and beauty in the rough and tumble of life.
What do I want to leave behind most of all?
LOVE, Only LOVE.
Nita Gilger
with a loud, questioning voice.
It asks, "What do you want to leave behind?"
"What needs to be rebuilt in your life
when destruction and dismantling visit you?"
"What messages will you leave for others?"
Loss is not the final word.
Change is inevitable.
Nature finds a way.
Life is more than a remnant.
It is always renewing itself.
New life is waiting to burst forth
even in the weeds and burn scars.
Time and patience make for
a healing pathway.
Be curious. Don't just ask why,
ask why not?
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Possibilities are all around.
What remains? It is not just a stump.
It is a messenger of endurance
and beauty in the rough and tumble of life.
What do I want to leave behind most of all?
LOVE, Only LOVE.
Nita Gilger
Remnants and Renewal
What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world. By reason of this reciprocal relation, the love in the world passes into the love in heaven, and floods back again into the world. In this sense, God is the great companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands.
- AN Whitehead, Process and Reality
- AN Whitehead, Process and Reality
Do you ever wonder what happens to your experiences after they perish? Consider a moment from childhood: perhaps a time when you were held in your mother’s arms, or when you took your first steps. There may be a photograph of you as a child in your mother’s arms. But where did the experiences themselves go—yours and hers?
And not only these personal experiences, of course. What becomes of the experiences of all people, of neighbors and strangers, of people on other sides of the world. And of other living beings, too: dogs and cats, deer and antelopes? Where do experiences go?
Some Buddhists speak of a storehouse consciousness: a deep dimension of consciousness in which the traces of experience are preserved. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead had a similar idea. He spoke of an aspect of God that receives and remembers all that has happened. He believed that our experiences and lives—and those of all sentient beings—are not simply stored there; they are loved there. They are held in the divine memory with, in his words, a “tender care that nothing be lost.”
And yet, for us, experiences and lives do seem to be lost. We are left with fragments, traces, and memories. But Whitehead did not stop with the idea of divine remembrance. He believed that what is good and beautiful, vital and nourishing—and even what is troubled and painful—can be transformed into healing energy and offered back to the world, again and again. From remnants come renewal.
We receive this energy when we are loved by others, graced by their presence, and we pass it onward through our own love for others. And when we become aware of this, we realize that our purpose in life - really the only purpose - is to love and be loved.
As Nita Gilger puts it in her poem:
"What do I want to leave behind most of all? LOVE. Only LOVE."
Jay McDaniel
And not only these personal experiences, of course. What becomes of the experiences of all people, of neighbors and strangers, of people on other sides of the world. And of other living beings, too: dogs and cats, deer and antelopes? Where do experiences go?
Some Buddhists speak of a storehouse consciousness: a deep dimension of consciousness in which the traces of experience are preserved. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead had a similar idea. He spoke of an aspect of God that receives and remembers all that has happened. He believed that our experiences and lives—and those of all sentient beings—are not simply stored there; they are loved there. They are held in the divine memory with, in his words, a “tender care that nothing be lost.”
And yet, for us, experiences and lives do seem to be lost. We are left with fragments, traces, and memories. But Whitehead did not stop with the idea of divine remembrance. He believed that what is good and beautiful, vital and nourishing—and even what is troubled and painful—can be transformed into healing energy and offered back to the world, again and again. From remnants come renewal.
We receive this energy when we are loved by others, graced by their presence, and we pass it onward through our own love for others. And when we become aware of this, we realize that our purpose in life - really the only purpose - is to love and be loved.
As Nita Gilger puts it in her poem:
"What do I want to leave behind most of all? LOVE. Only LOVE."
Jay McDaniel