Flashy Thingy: Forgetting on purpose (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Remember the "flashy thingy" from the Men In Black movies, that cigar-shaped tech used by the agents to make people forget extraterrestrials are living on Earth? Well, the time has come when we may not need Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones to flash away our memories.

Apparently, we can forget.

Oh, I don't mean accidental forgetting; we all know we can do that and most of us wish we could make it stop. Nor do I mean repressed memories associated with traumatic experiences (such as often exists in patients diagnosed with PTSD). It is quite common for people to repress bad memories.

What I mean is this: we can decide to forget ... and then do so.

Several promising studies over the past few years have shown that, instead of psychological repression, we can actually trigger memory suppression. I know those terms seem similar, but they are actually very different. The first one, repression, happens without conscious decision, and is almost always associated with having experienced a traumatic event. It's the second one, voluntary suppression, that is our focus.

Just as a person may use certain techniques to ensure the remembering of something, there are ways in which a person can intentionally forget. Most of the research in this area is aimed at helping people who have been crippled (for lack of a better term) by traumatic memories; people who have developed psychoses, neuroses, depression, etc., because they cannot forget.

All of this is still experimental. We humans are still a long way from having a "flashy thingy" we can wield with surgical precision to erase troubling memories. One big plus in all this, however, is that our brains tend to heavily lace the memory process with creativity; in fact, the two are almost welded together. As I wrote five years ago, we don't so much "Save" our memories as we "Save As." Even as we are making our memories, we tend to recast them in creative ways.

So, what would that mean for the Creator of all creation? Does God possess the ability to forget at will? Can God's creativity trump His memory? Can love really cover a multitude of sins?

Anyone reading this week's Lectionary passage from Jeremiah would have to wonder.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 24 (29) (October 16, 2016)
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=284

First reading and Psalm
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104
Alternate First reading and Psalm
Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 121
Second reading
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Gospel
Luke 18:1-8
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Can you join us Friday morning for Lectionary Breakfast? We would love for you to meet us at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for food, fellowship, and, yes, fun. We start 8:00-ish and are gone by 9:00-ish. In between, we read scripture, eat whatever we order from the menu, discuss, and (I know I keep reporting this, but its true) there is an almost unbelievable amount of laughter.

Join us.

Enjoy the week!
Steve