Initial Conditions

As friends and identity theft fans will know, I recently turned 25, and I’ve discovered that getting older means that you start forgetting things.

My memory is, shall we say, not terribly selective with what it remembers. I remember things. Just the other night I was able to recount a story my flatmate’s fiancée told us that she (and the rest of us) had completely forgotten. If I know you (and if you’ve told me the approriate information!), I could probably tell you when your birthday was, if you have a driving licence, the names of at least four cities or football clubs in your country, the result of every football World Cup match since 1998 (Costa Rica 2 China 0 in 2002 wasn’t a great game), when we met, what we talked about and the eye colour of pretty much every girl I’ve had a crush on. I can even remember phone numbers of old friends I had in primary school! (To give you an indication of how old I’m talking about, the area code was 01247 and not 02891!)

It should be noted that I don’t try to remember these things. I just do, and sometimes people react negatively when I remember something about them (not necessarily a bad thing), but I promise you that it’s just because I’ve remembered and not for any nefarious purpose or because I somehow have some weird stalkerism about you!

But time takes its toll. I’ll probably remember these things my whole life, but now I’m struggling to remember more important things like getting milk and how much money I owe or am owed by my flatmates, or what I actually went in for when I went into the kitchen, or even if I meant to go into the kitchen in the first place!

Being able to remember stuff is, however, not especially useful unless you can somehow apply it, and I don’t just mean in pub quizzes. I got 100% in my driving theory test, so I obviously knew how to drive a car. But I failed my practical test seven times because I wasn’t able to apply properly what I knew to the rigorous testing in the driving test. Similarly, I know a lot about the Bible. But that’s absolutely no use unless I can apply what I read there to my own life. So it’s a gift, certainly, but it needs to be used well, and I guess the parable of the talents fits in here.

It’s late, so I’ll leave you with an extract from possibly my favourite Bible book, Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 good advice here for the young, and the young at heart:

¹ Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
Before the difficult days come,
And the years draw near when you say,

“ I have no pleasure in them”:
² While the sun and the light,
The moon and the stars,
Are not darkened,
And the clouds do not return after the rain;
³ In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
And the strong men bow down;
When the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look through the windows grow dim;
⁴ When the doors are shut in the streets,
And the sound of grinding is low;
When one rises up at the sound of a bird,
And all the daughters of music are brought low.
⁵ Also they are afraid of height,
And of terrors in the way;
When the almond tree blossoms,
The grasshopper is a burden,
And desire fails.
For man goes to his eternal home,
And the mourners go about the streets.
⁶ Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed,^[a]
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well.
⁷ Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Remember what is important, while you still can!