fighting forgetfulness

From my morning notes......

One of my devotional readings today was about forgetfulness...when we forget to partake in the invitations we have been offered. In the story, it was forgetting about a dinner invitation, and then comparing it to Lady Wisdom's dinner invite in Proverbs, and how God invites us and we tend to forget due to busyness.

I very much relate with this theme...its something I have believed for a long time. We are not really bad people, selfish people, although we do bad and selfish things. We just forget, in the midst of our daily life, to remember who we want to be and how we want to act. It can be difficult to remember a principle or belief that you want guiding your life when you are under the stress of a deadline, or worried about paying the bills this month, or trying to figure out finance a car repair. For lack of better wording, sometimes life just gets in the way of remembering all the things you want to be.

Its one of the reasons I have tried to put more effort into reading a devotional or reflection each morning, be it from a Christian service like Upper Room, or getting emailed ones from Belief Net for Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism. Its why I try to remember to say a small gratitude prayer before I eat a meal. Its not that I am agreeing wholeheartedly with the reflections I am reading, most of the time I struggle with their message. Its not that I think that prayer is a vital thing, I'm actually very undecisive regarding prayer, its purpose and impact as a cause/effect factor with the Divine. And its why I try to write as much as I can about these things, about what my reaction is to a particularly Scripture reading or spiritual quote. All these things serve the purpose of grounding me each day, each hour, each moment. They give me a constant reminder as I start my day what to be thinking about, they remind me throughout the day as I think about what to write, they remind me of all the thoughts I have about the person I want to be, and how having constant reminders of those ideals, helps guide me in making decisions and participating in actions that better accomplish those ideals, thus, hopefully, continually making me closer to the person I desire to be. Which of course is not to say that I am anywhere near that, as I am still a deeply flawed creature in a myriad of ways.

But I have no doubt that without this semi-obsessiveness about reading these things and writing about them, all for the purpose of remembering my ideals throughout the day, that without these constant steps for remembrance, I would be further away from my ideal, and I would be making no progress at all. The need for me to remember is great, to remember to be charitable when I get stressed out by bills and financial obligations; to remember to be kind when the feeling overwhelmed by deadlines; to remember to share and be open when I get tired of "dealing" with people throughout the day; to remember that progress towards the best version of myself during times of self-doubt; to remember that I am extraordinarily blessed during times of selfishness; to remember that there is something far greater beyond me, something else worthwhile working for, to remember something divine.