Haunted by the Past
Say not thou, “What is the cause that the former days were better than these?” For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. - Ecclesiastes 7:10
The most defining moment in the totality of time took place in the past. It was the cross of Christ. In it, the death of death was secured and the beginning of all things being made new was initiated. Death is the reversal of life’s future-oriented fecundity. The death-sentencing of death secures fruitfulness and a perpetual future as a permanent fixture of reality. World without end, amen. With the future ahead for all those abiding in Christ no longer one of condemnation or undoing, one is able to break free from the trap of maximizing one’s perception of the past. With the attention of the soul trained on Jesus Christ, one is able to select and deselect within every kind of memory under the jurisdiction of Christ’s accomplishment. Because the future is secure, the past is no longer the threat the unbelieving mind once thought it to be.
Umberto Eco has said that there are three kinds of memories: vegetal, mineral, and enfleshed. The memory of flesh is the human soul recounting selected items which are stored in the body and the mind. In this way, memory is such a close function of the individual that it might be thought of as pure soul. One’s perspective of the world is the outward gaze of the soul from the vantage point framed by memory. A hard drive in a computer is likened unto clay and stone tablets of old. These are all mineral memories. That which is recorded on paper and papyrus is vegetal memory.
The ability to select is what makes the art of memory so important. It is the difference between a library that has a librarian and dumpster full of printed paper waiting to be recycled. If the soul is unable to select and deselect, to remember and forget, then memory would be futile. There would be no structure upon which meaning could hang.
For many people, an inordinate relationship with the past is predicated upon the misconception that the soul has no power over memory. It is often thought that we are victims of what has been burned into the film. For some people, this is good news; for others, not so much. But recollection is a gleaning work. It is important to remember that both the leaving of fruit on the edges and the gathering of the same by others is summed up in the same commandment.
Leviticus 19:9-10 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God.
Gleaning laws include both gathering and refraining from gathering. If remembering can be selective then so can forgetting. That is not to say that the task is an easy one; nor is it to say that the act of forgetting is a volitional act of denial, at least not in the traditional sense. Denying something from the past occupancy in the present is not the same thing as pretending that it never happened. In the same way, a harvester who leaves a row of strawberries on the edge of the field does not deny the existence of the strawberries, she simply determines not to pick them. She sees them and she leaves them where they lie.
People are so haunted by the past that they are unable to properly live in the present when they hyperbolize both positive and negative memories. Scripture warns us not to view the past through such warped lenses. Wisdom understands our own proclivity to render former times as being larger than the present. There are evil ghosts from these times who seem to loom as a constant threat of imminent danger and there are seemingly friendly ghosts who loom as a constant temptation to yearn for a time other than the present. Both of these ghost clans are commissioned by discontentment and must not be given lodging.
Say not thou, “What is the cause that the former days were better than these?” For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. - Ecclesiastes 7:10
Some of the greatest joys we may have in this life are the remembrance of things past. This in and of itself is not a sin. When we remember, however, we tend to eulogize and eulogizing quickly turns into hyperbolizing. Consider the return of the Hebrew children from exile and the inauguration of the second temple.
Ezra 3:10-13 And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel. And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.
Notice the collision of those who were grateful for the present and those who lamented the absence of the past. Rather than functioning as a single voice, the people were divided. It wasn’t a matter of there being two equally viable competing perspectives. Ingratitude was polluting the clear voice of gratitude. And the ingratitude was motivated by the haunting articles of a past glory. They ought not have been given sanctuary. The truth is that, in the case of the second temple, had the older generation been willing to practice gratitude for what they were given rather than ingratitude for what they no longer had, they would have been rejoicing in the greater thing. They may not have understood that, but at least their worship would have been rightly ordered. This temple would be graced by the feet of the Son of God and in its courts the Gospel of God’s redeeming love for sinners would be voiced by the Messiah.
Haggai 2:9 The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.
But it’s not only that one may be unable to see the ways in which the present is greater than the past. It may also be that one is unable to see the ways in which the past is being viewed hyperbolically. Eulogy often gives way to hyperbole. For this reason Proust is famed for having said, “The remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”
Whether it is accolades, riches, or strengths, outward glories diminish. The strong man’s strength gives way to weakness. Over time, the strength of youth will only exist in memory. If he gleans where he ought to refrain from gleaning a man may be tempted to grasp at that which is not material. There is no physical strength to be had by the man whose body is failing him. Only fools and slaves will preoccupy themselves with trying to bottle the wind. In the same way a man’s trophies or former bank statements may call to him from the immaterial realm of the past. He may be tempted to listen. He may be tempted to try to join them. But he cannot. All time travelers are discontents. They abandon their post amongst the living in order to role play life in the realm of the dead. The soul that preoccupies itself inordinately with the accomplishments of the past is condemned to languish in the present.
There are other ghosts who, when present, do not incite the desire to time travel but an overwhelming fear that one has not yet left the past. In the presence of these menacers, the present, rather than the past, becomes the time which appears to be elusive. The body feels stuck in a realm within which the soul is not allowed to enter fully. These ghosts often come in two forms: sins we’ve committed and sins which have been committed against us.
A child that is loved and given appropriate affirmation and affection is typically the seed form of a healthy and functionally capable adult. Prisons are full of men who were boys without fathers. Sexual wounds and sexual sins leave indelible marks upon the soul and sometimes the body. The soul may have the power to select and deselect when it comes to memory, but sometimes the gas pedal sticks and selection is the only option. There is no deselection. This requires certain tools.
The way of the Christian is the way of spiritual warfare. If today is the day of the salvation, neither tomorrow nor yesterday, then the fiercest battleground in spiritual warfare is today . . . the present. The competitors to the throne then will be the past and the future. The will is powerless, in its own strength, to prevent the haunting of our house. Apart from putting sin to death in our body by the power of the Holy Spirit, the individual who tries to purge the interior castle of ghosts will only be abused all the more.
Acts 19:13-16 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.” And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
If it was possible to cleanse a house apart from the power of the Holy Spirit . . . if a person could accomplish spiritual cleansing . . . without faith in Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ did not need to live and die. But the power for this action is located directly in the center of His resurrection. It was given to Him to dispense this Gift in His ascension. And He did dispense it at Pentecost. Christians must learn to pray and employ God’s Word by faith in Jesus in such a manner that the temple is purged of its specters. Our own involvement is to align ourselves with Christ’s victory. We are not contributing half of the energy. Our own volition is not attributed with 49% of the sweat equity. It is not attributed with .5% of the sweat equity. Our part is to gladly yield, in the will, to the inclination of the will being tuned by the power of the Holy Spirit to work in league with His own good pleasure. The pro action on our part can be best understood as inaction. Faith ceases from operating in accordance with the flesh. The proactive power and inclination is the work of God. In this way, the faith that justifies is living.
Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Sins we’ve committed and sins committed against us are summarily dealt with by faith in the powerful blood of Jesus. This precious gift must be encircled on all sides with constant warfare in order to fend off its opponents and supplanters. When we allow their whispered messages to be imported into the present from the past, we are being tempted to believe an outdated message rather than an eternal decree. Some things from the past will need to be shot on sight. Some things from the past will need to be left along the edges of the field. And some things from the past will need to be collected in order that the work of the present might be properly ordered. This is especially true when it comes to the vital but careful work of finding healing, producing forgiveness, and working the work of reconciliation.
A proper study of history is the closest thing humans have to fortune telling. In doing so, the inhabitants of the present look backward in order to fill their own moment with properly imported wares from another time. Our eyes are only allowed to open toward the past. We are forbidden from looking into the future. God, however, does not condemn being historical; on the contrary, He requires it. He is a remembering God and a memorializing God. His people are commanded to not forget certain things and so they are given memory in order to imitate the remembering faithfulness of God. Understanding what to select and what to deselect is spiritual warfare and should be treated as such. God is also a God who rightly forgets.
Isaiah 43:25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.
The present is thusly greener when the past is rightly ordered and preserved within its walls as a civilized contributor. Some things from the past need to be given entrance, but they must be made to obey proper rules of conduct. My own sins will never be more efficacious in defining me than the blood of Jesus has been. Sins against me will never define my identity if my life is hid with God in Christ. Ghosts can reach into those quarters.
History, however, is still light and ephemeral in that, when we view history, when we engage memory, we are reading the text that we have access to and not all other texts that inhabit that plane. History may be true, but it is partial and therefore it is only absolute when it is declared as a beginning in distinction from the end. In this sense, God is the only trustworthy librarian of the past. He is the truest Historian. That God has bothered to reveal anything at all is one of the greatest gifts ever given to the human family. The Word of God is a hyper-timed epistemological event. That which is true through revelation is true not only in the past, but in the present, and in the future as well. For this reason we must never attempt to engage memory work without being armed with revelation, which is God’s Word.
Fix your eyes firstly upon the Accomplished and let the new clock of all things renewed be the primary shaping force in your perspective of the present and the future. Flavel once said, “The providence of God is like Hebrew words — it can be read only backwards.” The brilliant works of God which we are allowed to see will either be behind us or ahead of us only in revelation that has already been given. Our lives are filled with competitors vying for our attention . . . a throng of voices from the past. There is only one historical point worthy of all our attention: the cross of Christ. There is no mistake that has been made behind you that is worthy of having the fuel of the present wasted on chasing it. There is no sentimental scene in the earlier episodes of your life that should overshadow the gift that God has given you of your life now.
