Afraid to Look Back? Greet Your Pain With These Spiritual Practices.
On poetry and author Tasha Jun's spiritual practice of Rememorari Divina
We can go back and see something we couldn’t then.
— Tasha Jun —
When we left Charlotte, we gave away everything.
Our whole life, in bags and boxes, divvied up and donated. Clothes, knickknacks, furniture I’d restored, and books. Of the books left behind, some were not ours. We had whole shelves of library books—both children’s and adult books, all blended together and sharing space on the same squished shelves.
I’ve been reading The Chronicles of Narnia to the boys, and we had only two chapters left of the second book in the series. We’d been trying to finish those last two chapters for the last few weeks but, between packing and traveling and moving, we never did.
Here we are, now, in some small-town in New York that I’ve come to call home. We are still a little unpacked and a little unsettled, but, a few days ago, I took my boys to the local library. At the front desk, I asked the librarian if she might grant me a temporary library card while I stay at my mom’s house for the summer. No, she told me. No, and sorry. Then she pointed me to the free books and told me to take some and that I was still welcome to enjoy the library. I smiled, thanked her kindly, and brought my boys upstairs to the children’s area. Then I sat there, oscillating between wonder and wound.
I relished in the moment, adoring the library for what it had become. (It’s an entirely new library, relocated and rebuilt.) Yet, I couldn’t help but lose myself in rêverie, looking back and remembering what the library once was and what it meant to me. (It used to be housed downtown in a charming historical building where I could easily ride my bike, visit the post office, and stop at the dinette—all in a matter of minutes.)
That day, before we left the library, that same librarian came to meet me and tell me she’d been discussing me ask ever since I left the front desk. They decided to grant me a provisional library card, something temporary to use for the time being.
I nearly cried, placing my hand upon my heart. When we made our way downstairs, we stopped in the room of free books. We sifted through shelf after shelf and, surprisingly, found a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Later, in the car, when I explained the free books and provisional library card to my boys, my oldest said something along the lines of this all turning out to be a good thing, because we wouldn’t want to “unfinish” our book.
I smiled, knowing exactly what he meant. I don’t want us to “unfinish” our book, either. I don’t want my boys or myself to “unfinish” any people or places or things. I want closure, always. I want intentionality. I want finality. I want good byes with good memories to sustain and outshine any endings and all new beginnings.
Some decades in the future, when my sons look back on this season, I know they will with inevitable pain and sorrow. I’m certain sad memories will stick out like a sore thumb, effervescent, uncannily brilliant and illuminating in their unforgetting brains. They will look back and wonder why, see would-bes and could-have-beens where my husband and I once saw our own should-bes and could-bes. I know that they will sift through memories looking for, as my friend
writes, “clues and closure.”1 They will see omissions where we saw opportunities; they will carry questions where we once sought to away with gravity the grief.This summer, this season, I’m following the longings to look back. I’m doing so with a deep knowing that there really is something of gold and goodness, not only in remembering the past but in mining it, too. There is gold to be gleaned. Somewhere, shimmering small and inconspicuous. I don’t want to live afraid of looking back, and I don’t want to live afraid of making decisions that will somehow, someday, make it harder for my children to look back without pain, without pining, without longing, without loss.
I am coming to believe that looking back isn’t a curse, it is a cure. For what, I don’t yet know. For certain, though, I know it in my burning bones, resonate and real, like some tale as old as time.
There is something sacred about this practice, this posture. This looking back to remember. This getting lost and found in rêverie. Perhaps, we reject rêverie not merely because it is “wrong” but because it unearths wounds? Pains of the past. Questions without answers. Curiosities without cures. Circles with untidy centers.
Do we fear our woundedness? To utter visions of the victims we once were, still are? And what if healing isn’t some distant thing to reach for? What if it’s found in retracing where we first lost ourselves?
And what if looking back isn’t a curse, but a cure.
What if looking back
isn’t a curse,
but a cure.
All,
Rachel
Music to meditate.
As we unravel rêverie, I want you to know: I hear you. When I read your comments, I ponder them all through the week. It’s an honor to hold space for all that’s broken and beautiful. As you name your memories and losses in this place, may you hear this song and feel heard. “Things We Miss, People We Lose” by Büşra Kayıkçı.
Curiosity to contemplate.
Please read “Rememorari Divina” by my friend Tasha Jun. She proposes a tangible, hope-filled spiritual practice to accompany those who remember and look back with longing.
Sometimes we have to go back, to learn how to be where we are. Time is mysterious and complex, and yet the reality of God-with-us is not only for us in this moment, but for yesterday and tomorrow too. We don’t go back to stay stuck there, and we can’t change what happened, but we can go back and see something we couldn’t then. —Tasha Jun
I intend to unpack this more. But, for now, I hope this sliver of truth might be a balm to those of us befriended with and by Grief. Of grief and painful pasts or memories, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who I’ve been sharing about lately, writes:
“A beautiful poem makes us pardon a very ancient grief.”2
Bachelard argues the necessary and inevitable intersection of poetics and memory; and I have to agree. This is why I wrote The Matter of Little Losses the way that I wrote it. Poems are pills for pain and poison. No? Poems are cures in curated, syncopated measure. It’s both mysterious and obvious. Those of us who know, simply know. Which brings me to this letter’s prompt. . .
Prompt to ponder.
In all your looking back, remembering, and grieving, tell me: What poem (or poems) soothe your sorrows? What stanzas have held you in your moments of deep grief? What poet speaks the language of your soul? And, if you’re someone who doesn’t quite feel acquainted with poetry enough to speak about it, tell me in a comment below. Perhaps I’ll point you in the direction of a beloved poet, or to one of my poems. . .
Recent features.
Listen to my recent interview on the Peace Talks podcast by The Center for Formation, Justice and Peace. This conversation gracefully moves from one moment to the next and reveals the many layers of poetry—as activism, as a holding space for grief, as a way to name. This beautiful interview will stir you to something more.
Read my latest (in)courage article, “Want to Know How She Does It? She Listens to the Holy Spirit.” Leave a comment on the article or come back here and let me know how it resonates with you.
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Tasha June. “Rememorari Divina” Shalomsick Notes, June, 20 2024, https://shalomsick.substack.com/p/rememorari-divina. Accessed June 21, 2024.
Michael McIntyre. “The pure memory has no date. It has a season.” Extravagant Creation, August 12, 2012, https://extravagantcreation.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/the-pure-memory-has-no-date-it-has-a-season/. Accessed June 21, 2024.
Rachel, I think of you often. What a sliver of tiny hope you brought me in my own season of deep, deep drought. Praying for you and your beautiful family on your own journey. Much love. Samantha.
I cried when they provided you a provisional library card too, friend. Hugs.