I Remember The Day It Came

It came on a Tuesday and it rained.

That is the first thing, and it is the sort of thing nobody would think to record, and it is the reason this article exists.

It rained, and the two men who brought it put sacking down in the hall because of the carpet, and your mother stood in the kitchen doorway the whole time with her arms folded and did not say one word until they had gone.

And then she said: well.

And that was the whole of her review, and everybody in that house understood exactly what it meant, and everybody in that house is now dead except you.

That is the fact underneath this. Not that the machine is going, which is nothing, because this is the fourth one since that one.

It is that there is no other person alive who was in that hall.

You are the last person who was in the room and not a woman with nothing to hand on, and a memory held by one person has never once been a memory that had to end with her.

Until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation

There is a prayer in the psalms from somebody who is old, and what they ask for is very specific.

Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. (Psalm 71:18, King James Version)

Until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation.

He is not asking to be remembered. He is not asking for his own account to survive. He is asking for time to hand something over, and the handing over is the whole content of the request.

That is a very unusual thing to want at the end of a life, and the psalm treats it as the natural thing to ask for.

You have something to hand over rather than something to be remembered for, and an old person with a thing to transmit has never once been an old person with nothing. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who is the last one who was in a hall, and Psalm 71:18 asks for time to show rather than time to be recalled.

And notice the phrase to every one that is to come.

Not to the people who were there. To the ones who were not, and to the ones who are not born yet. The whole direction of the prayer is forward, toward people who have no memory of any of it and no way of getting one except by being told.

You are facing toward people who were not there, and a memory carried by the only remaining witness has never once been a memory with nowhere to go. The written word aims the showing at everyone who is to come, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a transmission possible on an ordinary Sunday afternoon.

And the word shewed is a word about demonstrating rather than describing.

He wants to show them. To put it in front of them, in a form they can take hold of, not to leave a record somewhere for them to find.

You are able to put something in front of somebody rather than leave it somewhere, and a thing shown to a person has never once been the same as a thing written down and filed. The Holy Spirit is the one present in a room where somebody is being told something, and Psalm 71:18 asks for the showing itself.

The small details are the thing

Something practical, and it is about what to actually say.

The summary version is: we got our first washing machine in the sixties. Everybody nods. Nothing is transferred, and nobody will remember it in a week.

The details are what transfer. And the details are the parts you would not think to say.

The rain. The sacking in the hall. The two men. Your mother in the doorway with her arms folded. The one word she said. What it cost, if you know, and what that was against a wage then.

You have a set of details that nobody else on earth holds, and a small fact about sacking in a hallway has never once been too small to be the thing somebody keeps. The written word asks for a showing rather than a summary, and the Spirit of God is the one who brings the details up in an old woman on a Sunday.

Now the second practical thing, and it is about who.

Somebody younger. That is the whole of the requirement. Not the person most likely to be interested, because interest is not the point and the interested ones already know most of it.

Somebody who was not there. A grandchild, a neighbor's daughter, the young man who comes about the garden. Anybody at all who is forty years behind you.

You are handing something to somebody who has no other way of getting it, and a person forty years younger has never once been a person too far away to hand something to. The Holy Spirit is the one who puts the right person in a room, and Psalm 71:18 aims at every one that is to come.

And tell it as a story rather than as information. With the rain in it. Start with the rain.

You have a story with a laugh in it and a doorway and a single word, and an afternoon told properly has never once been the same thing as a fact reported. The Holy Spirit is the one in the room while it gets told, and Psalm 71:18 asks for the showing itself.