He is no forgetful listener

A Muslim story begins this way:

"There was once a King with a vast kingdom. He was a very great King, good, fair, just, merciful, loved deeply by all his subjects, by all the creatures in His kingdom.

His was not an ordinary kingdom. He ruled over all of nature, the mountains, streams, skies, and the wide earth whose strength supported all of these.

The King was loved deeply by all his subjects who knew well his continuous kindness and mercy.

One day the King called all of His subjects to come before Him. They all came willingly and from among their numbers each group chose a representative to stand before the King. The mountains chose the firmest and mightiest among them to go forward as their representative. The skies chose the strongest wind and in like manner each group sent forward their chosen representative.

The King said He had a task, a test, "a trust", a difficult undertaking, and He wanted to see who among His subjects would undertake this task.

The task was to journey through a faraway land known as the land of forgetfulness.

Anyone who entered this land forgot who they were, where they came from, even why they came to that land.

And even though that land was also part of the kingdom, the visible signs of the King were concealed and disguised in that land. Those who entered there became so forgetful and distracted that they forgot their beloved King and forgot that He had set them a task.

Only those who were able to look deep into their hearts would be able to remember their King and their task, because the forgetfulness was like a thick fog that clouded their minds.

And only those with a firm and deep love for the King would be able to journey safely through the midst of this land of forgetfulness.

The King asked the mighty mountains if they would accept but the mountains trembled and said they would accept any other task but this task was too difficult – how could they bear the separation.

The King asked the skies which enveloped the mountains and rose high above them, but the skies refused, sighing fearfully at the thought of such forgetfulness and what it might lead to.

Amidst all the creatures who refused this task, only one came forward. The other creatures turned…and looked at the human being. It was insignificant compared to the mountains, the sky, and the earth but on its face was the look of one who was consumed with a burning love for the King. I will undertake this task, he said."

I find myself in this story –as having said yes to the the king, and then once in the land of forgetfulness I often forget about the King and my promise to him.

The reading today from evening prayer (James 1,19-25), speaks of a different kind of person, of one who “is no forgetful listener, but one who carries out the law in practice. Blest will this man be.” How do I stop being a forgetful listener? I listen, get excited about the message, and over time forget it, and ends up sinning again.

This theme of the forgetful listener struck me in light of Mass readings from Revelations this week. On Monday we heard “I know your works, your labor, and your endurance… Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first.”In other words, the past was good, but overtime the listener became a forgetful listener. And yesterday, we heard “Remember then how you accepted and heard; keep it, and repent.”

When I commit sins that sometime in the past I had figured out how to avoid, I experience a certain anger at myself for being forgetful. “I should have seen that coming! –I tell myself -I can’t believe I did that again! Once I realize I have been a forgetful listener I repent.

I remember reading in one of Augustine’s letters that when we stop striving to move toward the Lord, that we automatically begin to fall. In my experience, I can only continue moving forward if I remember the lessons of the past, so that I don’t trip into the same stone again. But the question for me is how do I remain watchful, and not allow the goodness of the Lord become something of the past which I forget? How can I continually bring into the present the lessons from the past?

The experience of pre-Exilic times in the old testament seems to be an experience of forgetfulness: the people of God experienced salvation, God made a covenant with them, they were not loyal to God in the covenant, in other words they sinned, which led to punishment, then they repented, and experienced salvation, and again forgot about the covenenant, and sinned, were punished, and repented, but forgot over time, and the cycle continued.

So the question for me becomes, how do I break from the cycle?

I have been learning about the way that oral cultures are able to maintain alive traditions by retelling stories. Each time the story is told, the past is brought into the present. The story tellers are gifted people who can look deeply into the present in order to retell the past, and in this way carry the cultural identity of the group into the future. Sometimes story tellers even embellish or situate the story into details of the present – biblical literature is full of this anachronisms, where the essence of the story is maintained but the details are a little off. The details are off for those who want to read the story as history, but for the audience, those details brought the story to the present.

So to answer the questions I asked myself: how do I remain watchful, and not allow the goodness of the Lord become something of the past which I forget? How can I continually bring into the present the lessons from the past?

Perhaps I need to retell myself the story of my vocation more often, and update it to my current situation. I’ve had to write a vocation story applying to the pre-novitiate, one during novitiate, and one for CTU. At the end of novitiate, I wrote a long reflection about my novitiate year, and why I wanted to profess vows. I am going to start to re-read these stories, and add details to them each time I read them, and in this way, bring into the present the lessons of the past. I hope that by bringing the past into the present by way of my personal story, I may be able to peer into freedom's ideal law through the fog of forgetfulness, and become less of a forgetful listener.

-Carlos J. Medina, OSA