Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Good morning.  Here’s a memory of childhood.   It was an evening in May, the light that soft grey of early summer.  The countryside was still, except for the shush of wind in the trees. I remember we were on our bicycles, circling around the driveway in front of the living room window, which glowed yellow-orange in the gloaming. Suddenly a cheer rang out from the living room. Minutes later, someone – probably our mother – came out on the step and shouted, ‘Celtic have won!’

It was the 25th of May, 1967, and Celtic had just beaten Inter Milan to become the first British team to win the European Cup.  I was 7.  Even now, the memory of the grey light, the aimless bicycle circles, the warm air and the cheer from the living room is vivid.  Except: we only moved to the countryside when I was 8.  In 1967 we lived in a house on a street in Glasgow.  So what am I remembering?

Memory is powerful, and memory is unreliable.  Like the moment Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.  I remember sitting on the living room couch, the flickering, fuzzy black and white TV screen, and there he is, jumping down.  I’m aware of a voice saying, ‘Okay, it’s very late.  Bedtime’.  But my older sister says I wasn’t allowed to stay up.  I was never there.  Was I?

It’s a mystery, memory. Strong and vivid; elusive and fragile.  To carry with us the imprint of our living, the sense and sound and feel of our lives – it’s the only thing that breaks the lock of Time, and sets us free.

Eternal God, who is beginning and end, beyond time and in this moment: thank you for the gift of remembering.    Amen.