My Basket of Memories

Psalm 137 is the most poignant of psalms: “By the streams of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion…Our captors asked of us the lyrics of our songs…How could we sing a song of the Lord in a strange land?” There are those among us who are happy to have come to the U.S. to find work, but they long for the beauty and familiarity of their home land – Mexico, or the Philippines, or El Salvador. And there are those who are in the “strange land” of grief over a loved one whom they have lost. And there are those who are ill or growing old who try to remember the “songs” of their health and their youth. We often find ourselves in a place far from where we long to be. Oh God, help me to never forget the joys of the life that I once had. Plant forever these beautiful things of life into my memory basket – my first love, the time I held my first child, the pride I felt for my granddaughter in her first school play, the joy of being with family around a Thanksgiving meal, the freshness of a summer rain on my face, the giddiness of tumbling around in an enormous pile of orange-bright Fall leaves. These are the songs of my home land, the songs that I will sing whenever I find myself in a strange, unfamiliar place. Let me never forget them. - - - Fr. Jim