Atlanta Unitarian

Sometimes I wonder if our forward-looking culture does not underestimate the value of making and cultivating memories. We have so many catch phrases for focusing on the future. What's past is past. We need to focus on the task at hand. We need a plan for going forward. Just do it. But life at any stage is composed at least as much by memories as by opportunities, by the path we have followed as much as the path we have ahead. In fact, we are much more likely to discover ourselves by looking backwards than by looking forward. Life has a way of revealing through experience things that would never occur to our imaginations alone. What rituals, what practices, what customs do we have to cherish memories? Our holidays commemorate our civic history, but what about our personal history? Do we use birthdays to reflect backwards? Anniversaries? Graduations? Are we afraid that if we look backwards we will see opportunities missed, rather than life lived? If life is worth living, ...

With the nation embroiled in talk of recession - the media, investors, politicians - Americans seem desperate to avoid entering this dreaded state. Congress and the President rushed to pass a $100 billion + stimulus package. Pundits spin every day about whether or not we are in a recession, and what it would mean if we are. It is my sense that the obsession with recession reveals the dark side of the infamously optimistic American character. What is this desperate state that is so awful that we must try anything to avoid it, and that is so horrific that even if we are in it we had better not go about and acknowledge it? It reminds me very much of someone in the early stages of a depression, when there is still opportunity for denial and distraction. It's like a depressed person who thinks he can put off depression if he can just go on enough ski vacations consecutively. All kinds of denial and avoidance are preferrable to looking the depression squarely in the face. Perhaps, ...