Tag: remembering

That integration, that coherence of self in two souls resurrected in each other’s presence, is what keeps my place in my community. It’s what makes a home for my grievances, present and redeemed. It’s work, but it’s how we are made whole.

Shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Wendell Berry wrote, “The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism the ended on that day.” This, I fear, was one of the rare times Mr. Berry missed the mark. Collective amnesia is an American strong suit.

A proper remembering requires more than telling the facts or chronicling the plunder, rape, murder in Nanking; it requires that one explain the event.

And I'm certain my bovine stare was a dead giveaway that I found it troubling to imagine him wearing anything but a felt fedora while riding a horse named Hobby.

I was just a boy with spindly limbs and boney knees, but I knew the importance of stories, so I sat with my grandparents on the porch, and drank sweet tea, and listened to them talk.