Do memories heal? Can we be healed from painful memories? Memories can have a powerful influence on our perceptions of the world. Is emotional pain associated with memories an indication of a need for therapy or perhaps a reminder of resentments which have not been relieved by forgiving others or ourselves?
I recently experienced a very difficult evening. My wife had a very pleasant evening. We were seated side-by-side at a dinner honoring a retiring professor. We had both grown up in the academic community where this professor had spent his entire career. We've both known the honored professor and many of the guests for 40 years or more. We had both babysat for his children.
Obviously, at an event such as this multiple people praised the professor's contribution to the institution, to his fellow professors, to his many students, to his family, and to many others throughout the community beyond the academic institution. He was praised for his academic achievements. He was praised for his winning ways. He was praised for having managed to avoid the kind of political games that go on so often in academic institutions.
In his own remarks thanking folks for their kind words and for the opportunity he had been given to serve, he reviewed his time under five different presidents of the institution. The second of those presidents, my wife's father, had given him his first a chance to serve as Dean. He quipped that at that time there was both an in-house Dean and an outhouse Dean. Thus was my father's contribution to the institution remembered on this auspicious occasion, 30 years later still referred to only obliquely and derogatorily. My wife shrugs the reference off as being merely a play on words since the honored professor was the Dean of Academic Affairs (the in-house Dean) and my father was the Dean of Ministry Development (training of established ministers who are outside the institution's main student body). However, it was clearly a play he relished, this apolitical professor, that he would remark upon it in a brief statement, not much more than five minutes if that long, 30 years later.
So there I sat, watching the distinguished assemblage honoring this man. I found myself thinking that my father should have been honored in a similar way. Instead he is remembered as the outhouse Dean.
Recognizing the dichotamous nature of our two reactions to the evening, I am reminded of a song by Fred Small. He tells the story of two drivers. The first driver (himself) is angry and frustrated at being stuck in a traffic jam. The second driver (a small, tubby, bald-headed fellow) is unbothered by the lack of movement in their cars. The singer eventually comes to recognize that their different attitudes make all the difference. He himself was trapped in the traffic jam, while the carefree "Budha Behind the Wheel" was free, though experiencing the same traffic jam.
It is easy to recognize that it is my own attitude that has made me unhappy with what was said at that dinner and during my family's time at the institution 30+ years ago. It is not so easy to release the anger and hurt that I feel. I think I have matured some in that I can recognize that changing how I feel is my own problem. I just hope and pray that I can grow enough to be able to effect the changes which will release me from those feelings.
Posted by JoKeR at April 30, 2003 11:47 AM | TrackBack