Image
It’s been so long ago now I can’t quite remember when, but on a plane I watched the Romcom movie 50 First Dates where Adam Sandler falls in love with Drew Barrymore in a sweet Hawaiian beach town. They hit it off. Love at first site. But then the next morning when he runs into her again, she has no memory of who he is and is alarmed by his friendly advances. How do you build a relationship with someone who can’t remember who you are? It was a fun movie. Can’t say that if I were you, I’d rush to go see it necessarily. But what I didn’t know about until recently is that it was loosely based on two different cases of women with rare cases of anterograde amnesia—a situation where a person can remember their life just fine up to a particular head accident and then forgets all else that happens thereafter. Each morning, the person has to keep being reminded who their husband is, who their children are, where they now work, and so forth. It sounds strange, but apparently it does happen. And recently I’ve decided that I suffer from a version of it.
I know, I know. I’ve become a bit of a hypochondriac at this point. In the past eight months I’ve diagnosed myself with leprosy and syphilis and who knows what else. But this time, it’s something it turns out I’ve had for a while, and it has to do with faith. I wake up each morning remembering who my husband and son are, but lots of times I feel like I’ve forgotten who God is.
In the past there were long stretches of time when it didn’t seem to matter very much. I figured I’d be able to remember why I believe what I believe later when I had more time to think about it. In his book Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis says that if you buy a rope that says, “Holds weights up to 125 lbs,” and someone asks you, “Do you believe that’s true?” you easily say, “Of course.” But then when someone asks you to use that rope to let your wife down over the edge of a cliff and she weighs 120 lbs…. well, suddenly you aren’t quite sure. It’d be nice to have more proof. Being diagnosed with terminal cancer is kind of like that. I’m a theologian, for goodness sake. Of course I believe in God. Of course I believe in the Paschal Mystery. Of course I believe in the afterlife. But then you get told its time to test that belief system out, and suddenly you just want to read the packaging surrounding the rope again.
So I do. I’ll pray. I’ll reread a book or two that have been meaningful to me in the past. I’ll talk to a good friend. And I’ll think, “Oh yes, I remember now. I do believe that. Thanks, God. I can go on with my day now.” But then night comes and I go to sleep and I wake up and as I still lay there in bed, each and every morning there is a moment when I realize I have terminal cancer and my thoughts go back to the basement of the mental house I am building and the questions rise, “Now, what exactly do you believe again? Is there a God? Who is Jesus? What’s this thing about an afterlife?” It’s a lot of work getting out of bed in the morning when you have spiritual anterograde amnesia .
One of the sweet things in 50 First Dates is that Adam Sandler puts together a short video for Drew Barrymore so that when she wakes up in the morning and is confused, he plays it for her. In a couple of minutes, it recounts their life together. Reminds her that, yes, they are married. Indeed, they have a kid. Yes, he does still love her. It always surprises her, but then she is ready for the coming day, and generally it is going to be a pretty good one. She can leave the darkness of the basement and go up to the next floor and begin to live there.
I can’t say right now that I have a video exactly. God tends to like to spice it up a bit and give me something different each morning. Again, sometimes it is a reading. Sometimes it is a wise spiritual director. My dear husband. My faithful son. The beauty of a Chatahoochee River walking path. A child in the atrium. Doing the Jesuit examen and remembering with gratitude where God showed up yesterday. And, if I get really desperate, having to call a Dominican friend and ask, “Can you remind me what Aquinas said about….?” Yes, I know that is an odd one. Probably wouldn’t help most people, but for someone of my particular disposition…. Well, God bends to meet a person where they are.
Of late, out of gratitude for what the Dominican spiritual tradition has added to my life and buoyed by the suspicion it might be useful to others right now, I’ve begun to rewrite my earlier book on truth from 2020 from a different angle. I’ve found I have a few more things to say. Again. Or that I want to re-say in a different way, if only so that I can remember them again more quickly each morning and get out of the basement to live a good day. So far, I just have chapter 1. It might be a while. It might not even be good. But I’ll probably be mentioning it again in weeks to come as it helps me personally to write it.
I imagine most people of faith do not suffer from anterograde amnesia. Thank God for that! But I also have been around the block enough in church life to know that many people do, and that the regular resurgence of questions about God and faith are not an unusual thing. Indeed, more common than leprosy at this point. I know I’m not alone. I want you to know you are not alone. But perhaps we can continue to be on the lookout together each day for all the ways that God tries to remind us who he is, who we are to him, the dreams he has for us, the love he is surrounding us with even right now.
(PS - The picture I've attached for today is one I took while walking this week from the street I live on. Loved it. That is what I feel like every morning! But I can be gentle with myself. I am just a new driver on the road of life each morning.)