The Bridge to Nowhere
Our pasts can play an important role in how we give and receive love in the present. Experiences from years ago can lead us to think that we are not lovable, that others will love us only if we act or say certain things, or that the only way to love someone is by showing the same warped “love” to others through emotional, physical, or verbal abuse.
The memories that we carry with us from these experiences can become a great burden, slowing down, stunting, or completely halting our ability to give and receive love in an appropriate and meaningful way.
A taste, or sound, or some other kind of sensation can immediately draw us back into the past, leading to feelings of nostalgia, bitterness, or even pain. We can long for moments from long ago when we think of the friends we had and the experiences we shared, comparing it to the present where everyone has seemed to go their separate ways or changed radically from who they once were.
We can also experience the pain of memories as our mind seems to force us to relive an awkward or shameful experience. Deep wounds can be carved into our hearts through a missed opportunity, some kind of mistake on our part that we wish with all of our being that we could go back and change, or when the trust of someone we thought would love us better is lost through their own moral failures.
Today I would like to explore three ways that memories can play a role in our capacity to love. As always, these thoughts are not comprehensive and are certainly not meant to replace the wealth of resources available on healing from past memories. What I offer are simply my reflections on love.
Our Iconoclastic God
The first way that memories can impact our capacity to love is if they distort the past to fit our needs by focusing on only certain qualities of events or people rather than the entire event or person.
In one of his most devastating books, A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis welcomes the reader into his most brutally honest and vulnerable thoughts after the passing of his wife of four years. This short text leads the reader through very honest questions from someone experiencing such a profound grief at the loss of someone loved so dearly.
Lewis rightly points out an inherent danger that can be found in our memories. We can think that the image we have of someone in our head - someone that we may not have seen in years - is perfectly accurate. Upon reacquainting ourselves with that person we soon discover that this image is often entirely false.
Today I had to meet a man I haven’t seen for ten years. And all that time I had thought I was remembering him well—how he looked and spoke and the sort of things he said. The first five minutes of the real man shattered the image completely. Not that he had changed. On the contrary. I kept on thinking, ‘Yes, of course, of course. I’d forgotten that he thought that—or disliked this, or knew so-and-so—or jerked his head back that way.’ I had known all these things once and I recognized them the moment I met them again. But they had all faded out of my mental picture of him, and when they were all replaced by his actual presence the total effect was quite astonishingly different from the image I had carried about with me for those ten years.
After experiencing this image-shattering moment with the man he hadn’t seen for ten years, he begins to realize that the same thing could happen to his now deceased wife:
How can I hope that this will not happen to my memory of H? That it is not happening already? Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes—like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night—little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the image of her. The real shape will be quite hidden in the end. Ten minutes—ten seconds—of the real H. would correct all this. And yet, even if those ten seconds were allowed me, one second later the little flakes would begin to fall again. The rough, sharp, cleansing tang of her otherness is gone. What pitiable cant to say ‘She will live forever in my memory!’ Live? That is exactly what she won’t do. You might as well think like the old Egyptians that you can keep the dead by embalming them. Will nothing persuade us that they are gone? What’s left? A corpse, a memory, and (in some versions) a ghost. All mockeries or horrors. Three more ways of spelling the word dead. It was H. I loved. As if I wanted to fall in love with my memory of her, an image in my own mind! It would be a sort of incest.
The flakes of Lewis’ memory of his wife can slowly begin to cover the reality of who she really is. If only he could see her again, hear her voice again, or hold her again would the false memories fall away. This desire, however, isn’t possible in this life. He will never be able to know her in this world as he once did. Trying to recreate her from memories seems to only diminish the glory of who he truly loves.
Later in the book, Lewis revisits the danger of having a false image of his wife and even connects it to the dangers of having physical reminders of her.
I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want H., not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle. Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images— sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens in our private prayers. All reality is iconoclastic. The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to love still, after she is dead. But ‘this’ is not now imaginable. In that respect H. and all the dead are like God. In that respect loving her has become, in its measure, like loving Him. In both cases I must stretch out the arms and hands of love—its eyes cannot here be used—to the reality, through—across—all the changeful phantasmagoria of my thoughts, passions, and imaginings. I mustn’t sit down content with the phantasmagoria itself and worship that for Him, or love that for her. Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H.
Lewis is obviously not advocating that we revive any kind of iconoclasm in the Church; yet he points out a significant need to not make idols out of the images and memories we do have. God, Lewis observes, is the great iconoclast. He is constantly destroying boxes we try to put Him in and subverting our expectations as our art, music, and words can only capture a glimmer of the reality of who our God really is. Likewise, the memories of our past - even the good ones, will always pale in comparison to actually living in those moments.
If we are only living in the past, we risk the danger of relieving beautiful or painful memories that have collected the flakes of time, thus distorting the totality of what we once experienced. This does not mean that memories are bad or to be avoided, it simply means we have to be cautious if we find ourselves idolizing people or events from the past and in the process distract ourselves from loving what is real.
2. ‘Coulda’ ‘Woulda’ ‘Shoulda’
A second way that memories can impact the way that we give and receive love is by revisiting moments with the intention of thinking, “how could I have done this differently?” Sometimes we give into this temptation after an argument when we think of the perfect come back or another point that would have validated our hurt feelings.
Other times we see ourselves giving into this unhealthy memory trip when we begin to regret our current life circumstances. The pain that we currently find ourselves in, we convince ourselves, could have only been alleviated if instead of doing “a, b, and c” we would have done “x, y, and z.” The “could haves,” “would haves,” and “should haves” can lure us into an incredibly dark place, ultimately leading us away from living in the present and having hope for the future and instead to continuously revisiting the past, living as a tombstone - immovable and a constant reminder of what could have been.
One of my favorite musicians, Sufjan Stevens, confronted his own memories of his often absent mother in his 2015 album Carrie and Lowell. The second track of the album, “Should have known better” speaks to the “dark shroud” affecting his feelings and a longing to address what he should have known better by writing a letter to “grieve what I happen to grieve” and “explaining what I feel, that empty feeling.” The pain of her absence is obvious and his lyrics speak to the lasting effects on his life.
The recurring “should have” throughout the song speaks to what happens when we begin living in regret. Obviously, feeling remorse or regret about something that could have been is a normal human reaction to a loss or pained experience. The danger presents itself when we become stuck in remorse or a sense of regret. Instead of living in the present, we try to force ourselves to cling to memories that seem to do little more than remind us of either ours or others shortcomings and failures. The reality of the lyrics show that no matter how many “should haves” are sung, Sufjan simply did not know better at the time nor did he write a letter to express his grief or feelings of emptiness. By trying to make a home in our memories, we actually do violence to our present by robbing ourselves and those around us the joy of living in the now.
Fortunately, while the song conveys the darkness of the past, Sufjan is able to bring light to the birth of his brother’s daughter. The feel of the song begins to change and the lyrics express:
Nothing can be changed
The past is still the past
The bridge to nowhere
The “should haves” become less as the beauty and illumination that his niece brings to the world begins to take over the feel and lyrics of the song. This presence of this child brings joy, and even hope, to a song that was once dominated by the dark shroud of past memories.
While the “could haves,” “would haves,” and “should haves” of our lives may show up unexpectedly, it doesn’t mean that they have to dominate the time we live in or even our futures. We can begin to step away from the intoxicating lure of trying to live in the past by dwelling on the blessings of this current moment and the potential of where they could eventually lead us. We do not try to avoid the pain of our past, but at the same time we do not allow that pain to rob us of the good things we have right now.
3. Point Break and Da Vinci
Finally, a third way that our memories can affect how we give and receive love requires that we briefly step into the geeky world of comic books. In a way, memories can kind of play the role of a time machine in our lives as we venture into the past and step into a scene from days, months, years, and even decades ago. I think that there is a reason that the time travel trope is so popular in our culture. Having the capacity to return to the past and change it to make our present better or to venture into the future to see what kind of life we will lead is incredibly alluring.
A recent example of time travel is found in Avengers: Endgame as the main characters enter into the past (and different dimensions) to find what is necessary to defeat the film’s villain and undo his world-changing actions. While we definitely have a few lighthearted scenes of characters encountering their doppelgängers or trying to fit into the style and mannerisms of the 1970s, we also see moments of growth and healing.
At the beginning of the film we see an incredibly discouraged Thor, holding only himself accountable for failing to stop the villain from decimating half the population of the universe. After tracking down the villain, we find out that there is no way to reverse the damage, ultimately leading to Thor hiding himself from the reality of the world as he drowns himself in alcohol and distracts himself with friends and video games.
Thor is eventually cajoled into participating in another attempt to reverse the devastating effects of the previous film. This time, however, he must return to the past* and in doing so he has an encounter with his beloved and long-dead mother. This moment is exactly what Thor needs to recover his self-worth and concludes with the realization that he “is still worthy!” to bear his signature weapon.
Another beneficiary of the healing powers of returning to the past is Tony Stark (Iron Man) as we see the “Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist” superhero have an accidental run-in with his father. We know from a previous film that Tony and his father had a troubled relationship, something that he has come to regret after his father’s tragic death. In fact, Stark’s relationship with his father seems to play an enormous role in his character arc throughout the ten-year series. Meeting his father in the 1970s, having the opportunity to finally say, “you did your best,” and awkwardly embracing him may have even possibly brought to Stark what he needed most - healing from past mistakes and the freedom to move forward.
While only the future will determine if the quality of MCU films will stand the test of time, I believe we can clearly see how a trip to the past is not necessarily detrimental to our present or future; in fact, we can see that in the case of Thor and Tony Stark, it is almost the exactly opposite. A brief encounter with a mother or father gives both characters a chance to hear or say what needed to be heard or said. Thor’s mother helps her son step away from the narrow and crippling view that the responsibility for the death of so many fell solely on his shoulders. Tony Stark’s awkward encounter with his father gave him the chance to forgive and indirectly receive forgiveness from someone who had so much power over his memories for many years.
The journeys that these two Avengers make to the past bring not only healing to their memories, but also a new freedom to carry out the remainder of their mission. When our own memories are encountered in a healthy and appropriate way, we too can avoid the pitfalls of creating idols out of the past or by trying to dwell in a memory and instead find the freedom and healing we need to truly live in the present and learn to live in hope of what our futures may hold. .
We obviously do not have access to time machines, but I do think that there is at least one way to approach our memories that avoids the idolization described by Lewis and the temptation to want to control or get stuck in a pattern of what we would change. Instead of trying to rehearse past events over and over again in our minds or summon the memory of someone that is ultimately distorted, we can simply ask, “how was Christ seeing me in that moment that was so painful?”
To be a Christian means that, even if we didn’t feel his presence or want to believe that he was there, we still believe that Christ is always with us. We can cover the topic of suffering and the presence of God in a later article, but for now, we simply take Christ at his words, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). This means that if we struggle with a painful, embarrassing, or difficult memory, we can always return to that question, “how was Christ looking at me in that moment?”
Christ transcends time, which means that the relationship that we have with him now makes him just as alive and active in our past. In other words, we do not risk creating an idol out of Christ by seeing him in our memories because the intimacy of relationship that we have with him does not allow him to simply become a part of that memory - he is an active and living part of our past, present, and future. Thus, when we meditate on how he is looking at us in a memory of pain or difficulty, it is the Christ of our present moment that we see who is seeing us in love, not some faint memory of Jesus or past experience of him.
In asking how Christ sees us in our memories we are also removed from the traps of “could,” “would,” and “should.” Meditating on Christ’s glance or look can be an incredibly powerful moment of prayer as we see ourselves and the event not through our own narrow viewpoint that often tries to punish us for our mistakes and those of others, but instead we see ourselves through the eternal eyes of Christ that remind us of who was looking at us with love. Instead of constantly asking what we should have done better, we can reject the lies of self-hatred and simply say, “In this moment, I was loved.”
Memories can be hard to experience because, as both Lewis and Stevens point out, they can be full of traps that can leave us feeling stuck in the past and limit our mobility in the present and future. Knowing how to engage our memories in an appropriate way can set us on the path of freedom and in turn help us better give and receive love. This process can take time, but if we do not want to remain prisoners to our past, it is necessary. I know that in my own life as well as in the lives of countless others, meditating on Christ’s presence in our past experiences can bring tremendous healing and greater clarity of who we are in the midst of our own or others failures to love. Let’s not waste more tomorrows by being chained to the past. We have the chance to begin this prayer today.
Please watch the entirety of the MCU for a proper explanation - it should only take about 23 hours, and 48 minutes