Present Tense Repentance
I love maps. So, when I discovered Microsoft's Terra Server a few years ago I had a neck and wrist ache before I was able to pull myself away from my PC. I hadn't visited the site for a long time, but for some reason I decided to go check it out a couple of nights ago. The photos are better now in urban areas, and I was able to make out a little backyard shed I had built in my previous house. How cool is that? Then the trouble started. I decided to make a trip down memory lane with the help of this technology. "I wonder if I can find where we lived in St. Louis?" led to an intense hour-long session of re-living a bittersweet period of my life.
Two observations:
1) Physicality is important, and not synonymous with materialism. I knew this really well as a child. . .lost sight of it as my ability for abstract thought took over as a young adult. . .lived in denial of it until about 5 years ago. . .and was greatly relieved to find that my intuitive childhood relationship with "things" was alive and well in the Orthodox Church. As I retraced my steps in St. Louis with the aid of TerraServer, I was transported there in an emotionally charged way. The "things" I was looking at through the satellite lens is what did it. Just "remembering" my life in St. Louis isn't as powerful. I've most likely put certain filters in place. Seeing the asphalt path in the park across from the Seminary, that I walked on day after day learning Greek vocabulary, is like stepping into a time machine. I can feel everything associated with that blacktop path covered with goose droppings in the humid St. Louis Spring, and re-live the pressure I felt to somehow remember all those words for Monday morning's vocab quiz.
2) Looking back is dangerous. Becoming emotionally connected to the past should be considered an X sport. I don't recommend it. It gives the false impression that fatalism has the upper hand and if you're not careful, it is easy to get into "but if only. . ." mode. The past is what it is. I cannot interact with it, I can only learn from it and repent in the present. Looking ahead, to my death, is actually more profitable and in reality less morbid.
