Faith Matters 39: For The Gardner News, April 21, 2007
The Gift of Memory
One summer during my seminary training I worked as a chaplain on a geriatric psychiatric unit. Going there could break your heart. The patients all suffered from mental illness or dementia. Sometimes I’d pace the halls with a frail, elderly woman who couldn’t sit still. She needed to walk away her anxiety. I would pace with her, trying to match my stride with hers, trying to engage her in conversation to distract her from the fears and anxieties eating away at her. I asked her name and about her family, but this only made her more anxious. She couldn’t remember her own name or where she was from. She didn’t know if she had any family. Sometimes I could get her to sit down and pray with me, and one afternoon I discovered that although she no longer knew her own name, couldn’t even remember that she had a daughter who visited her faithfully several times a week, from somewhere deep within her she could still summon up the 23rd Psalm, which she knew by heart. And reciting it with her in the rich language of the King James version seemed to bring her the deep peace that nothing else could.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me beside the still waters;
he restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff—
they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Perhaps no other passage in the Bible has the same power, the same resonance, and the same ability to comfort us in difficult times. Many of us committed the words to memory when we were children, perhaps with only the vaguest notion of what they meant beyond sweet images of sheep and green pastures. But words and images are like seeds. They can grow silently within us as we journey through life, resurfacing from time to time when called forth by circumstance and events. Over the years the images in this psalm rise within us when we need hope or comfort. Read at funerals the words are linked to lost loved ones and our hope for eternal life. Each reading resonates with other times and places we have heard it read. Each hearing is both new and rich with the memory.
If you haven’t heard it in a while, I invite you to reread it now. If you don’t know it by heart, consider memorizing it. Teach it to your children so that these images of God’s provision and love can grow silently within them. Live with it, savoring the richness of the words and letting them become a part of you. At some point in your life, when you find yourself in a hospital, a funeral home, a green pasture or dark valley, these words will rise up within you to offer comfort to a friend or loved one in need, or to comfort you when all else appears to be slipping away. The words are a gift and a blessing. May they grow deep within you and bring you God’s peace!