I was recently visiting my father in hospital. For various complicated reasons of the kind that happen every day in most of our lives, this was not in Wales where he lives, but in Enfield, where he lived until 18 years ago. So I found myself unexpectedly driving along roads and streets, and visiting places, that I haven't even seen for about 20 years. As I was early, I popped in to the library where I used to be a librarian 28 years ago, before I went to train for ordination. It was busy, with lots of visitors looking for books, or waiting to have them checked in or out. What amazed me was how much the place was at once familiar and strange. To start with, it looked tiny! Then in other ways it was also very different: instead of a substantial reference section, it had eight computers connected to the Internet, which now delivers most people's information needs. There was, of course, no one there whom I knew, though when I spoke with the staff we recognised (or politely claimed that we did) some familiar names.
Later I drove down a road which had been our nearest shopping centre for the first two decades of my life. Again there was this familiarity and strangeness. As far as I could see, only two shops were the same as they had been: Woolworth's and W.H.Smith. The fleapit cinema where we saw our first films, has become an antiques centre. Many of the small businesses have been taken over by a new generation of people who have moved to the area: the little delicatessens which used to be mostly Jewish are now Turkish or Greek. I kept wondering if I might see anyone I had been at school with - and would we even recognise each other?
Revisiting old places that hold so many memories for us, is an emotional experience, both bitter and sweet. This is why websites like Friends Reunited have such an enormous appeal, helping old schoolfriends, who have not met for years, to make contact again. It can be a heady experience, and as recent news stories tell us, the high emotional charge in some of these reunions has led in a few cases to extra-marital affairs and marriage breakdowns. On the couple of occasions when I have been contacted by old friends I haven't seen for 40 years, and we have met for a meal and an exchange of life stories, the experience has (fortunately!) been less catastrophic. We got on very well. They were jolly decent chaps, these old friends: I could see why I had liked them and been their friend in the first place. But now it was like meeting a stranger, a pleasant stranger it was easy to talk to, someone who might become a friend again if he was a part of my life now; but he isn't. We had a long-ago history and memories in common, but there is far too much intervening life that we have not shared. And it is that experience, that shared history running into the present day, that really makes for close friendships. It seems important to remember this, when the Church is accused of being backward-looking, and always living in the past. Yes, we have a long history that we remember and treasure. There is no way we can or should throw all that away, and behave as if we had to reinvent the whole of what we are about. But that past history is not a seductive illusion, like some of the memories of those who have rediscovered old friends with harmful results. It is a living and nourishing memory, because the shared story continues up to and into the shared present. Just as all of our pasts make us who and what we are, so the shared history of the Church and of every congregation makes it what it is. We can no more deny it, than we can deny our essential selves.
At the same time, we as Christians do not dwell on the past, or hanker for the Frankenstein-like reanimation of a world that has gone, but we have our eyes fixed on the future as we look for the new things God promises, and is doing. Some world-views think of time and history as circular; but we believe they have a destination and a goal. That goal is the fulfilment of God's plan: the Kingdom for whose coming we pray every time we say the Lord's Prayer.
This perspective makes it possible for us to work for a better world in hope, and not succumb to either despair or the naive worship of progress. It lets us hold a balance between cherishing the past, living in the present, and looking forward to the future. And it reminds us that the most far-reaching dreams are possible, when we continue to realise that we are not gods, but beings contingent upon something greater, the God who invites us in Jesus to live our lives in and for him.
Published in the MarstonTimes, October 2003