I read an article not too long
ago written by the novelist Michael Chabon. He said all his life he has been
the dutiful boy who will sit and listen to the old folks. He will listen to the
stories of the old uncles that nobody wants to listen to anymore. He will
patiently explain the mysteries of the newfangled world we find ourselves in
and agreeably listen as they explain how much better it used to be. As a child
at family gatherings, he would endure all the questions they wanted to ask and he
would politely listen to all their advice and cautionary stories, long after
all the other kids had run off to play.
As an adult, he still does that
– he’s the guy who listens to all the old stories about how wonderful life used
to be, even branching out beyond his own family. At a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah,
he is likely to be found sitting with somebody else’s Uncle Jack, patiently
hearing the stories Uncle Jack’s own family long ago grew weary of.
Maybe it’s out of a sense of
empathy, because he knows that, someday, he might very well be an Uncle Jack
himself, looking for somebody, anybody, who will listen to him. That might have
something to do with it. But he doesn’t say that. He wants us to know that,
really and truly, he likes hearing the stories. He doesn’t mind the nostalgia.
Nostalgia is something that
has a bad rep, but it’s not all bad, is it? It feels pretty good. There is in
it the fleeting sense of some lost beauty in the world – the wistful memories
of childhood, a remembrance of youthful nights with friends, laughing together.
It’s an appreciation and a longing for something wonderful that will never be
again.
And because of the fact
that it will never be again, there is a sadness in it too – the sadness of loss.
And sometimes the sadness about loss turns into something else: anger,
resentment, bitterness. Nostalgia can easily turn sour.
But one of the weird things
about nostalgia that we have to acknowledge is that it often distorts the past.
Like how when we were kids we had to walk five miles to school, and we were
better for it. Five miles. Through a blizzard. Uphill. Both ways.
In our memories, our
accomplishments were more accomplished. Our values were more valuable. Our
commonsense ways of doing things were just more … commonsense. In our memories,
everything was better back then.
There are psychological
explanations that aren’t too hard to understand. Our memories are selective; we
are just more likely to remember the good things. We aren’t trying to deceive
ourselves, but we actually try not to remember many of the bad things, because
they can be painful. It’s normal for the past to take on a softer focus, a
rosier glow.
But our nostalgia really
gets amped up when the present is uncomfortable, when the future is uncertain.
Hence, we have the peculiar complaints of the Israelites in the wilderness. It
was only a short time ago that they were praying to God to be released from
bondage. And now they are looking at Moses with accusing eyes and asking why he
has done this to them. It’s remarkable.
One thing I want to say
about their complaints is they are good at it – complaining. If there is such a
thing as a creative complaint competition, they could definitely be contenders.
My favorite is when they say: Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us
away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of
Egypt?
When they got panicky, they seemed to remember a different
experience in Egypt than the one they had actually endured. They reminisced
about sitting around their pots full of meat, eating all they wanted. Their
heads were full of memories of meat and fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, garlic
and onions!
Slavery never looked so
good.
And that is the danger and
the harm of nostalgia. As they stepped into an unknown place and an uncertain
future, they pined for a gauzy, prettied-up version of the past. They
remembered the best snippets of what it had been like, excising all the pieces
that didn’t fit this rosy narrative – and there were a lot of pieces that
didn’t fit. They turned their faces to this fictionalized memory of the good
old days in Egypt. And as long as they were fixated on that past it was
impossible for them to see the present into which God was leading them.
True, that this present
where God was leading them was a wilderness. Yes, we do have some sympathy for
them. Imagine being led away from the only home you ever knew, by a man you
barely know, into a harsh land you know not at all.
Yet, as long as they are
looking back they cannot live into the future.
We live in a time not too
different from this wilderness period. We face, every day, an uncertain future
about the church. We have worries about declining attendance, the aging of our
congregations, shrinking financial resources. We see around us churches closing
and we are wondering what it means for the future. In a sense, we are in our
own wilderness.
So, we look back at the
good old days, when the sanctuaries were full. We look back to when the churches
were full of children, the offering plates were full of envelopes, and the
pulpits were full of – men. And we remember a time when children were taught to
pray in public schools, when the laws kept businesses closed on Sundays, and schools
wouldn’t dare schedule an activity on a Wednesday night because that was church
night. We look back wistfully at a time when the church held power.
A few of our elders and I
were at a workshop recently where the leader asked us a question: How many of
you think your church’s best days are behind us? Many raised their hands. Then
he asked this: How many of you think God’s best days are behind God? Not a hand
was raised. So doesn’t it seem to make sense that if our interests are aligned
with God’s then our best days are ahead of us?
We wish we could go back to
what seems, in our recollections, like a better time. It’s hard for us to
imagine that God is leading us into a better future. Even seeking to trust in
God, we sometimes give in to despair.
But, sometimes you have to
spend time in the wilderness to really begin to see things clearly. To see that
we needed to shed some of the old complacency about our faith to experience it
in a new, authentically spiritual way. To see that perhaps God is calling us to
worry less about our Christian privilege and more about compassion and justice
for all.
Nostalgia can be a
destructive power for the church, just as much as it can be for our nation,
just as much as it might be in our personal lives too. Nostalgia, by pulling us
back in the past, steals away our joy, which can only be found in the here and
now.
Did you know that this
generation of Israelites, the great complainers, never made it to the Promised
Land? Perhaps because they were too nostalgic for the past, they couldn’t see
the gifts God was placing before them. That is too easy to do. May you not let
nostalgia get the better of things.
May you see the past for
what it was – both good and bad, and past. May you live in the present, where
Christ is with you. May you step into the future in trust. May you live in
gratitude for what was, what is, and what will be.
Photo Credit: By Alan Light - 1982 Consumer Electronics Show, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44814563
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