Here is an article that I wrote for my local newspaper.
No one as far as I know in this newspaper has ever “misremembered” anything. Reporters for this newspaper want to tell the truth, report the facts, and get on with it. I’m sure that “misremembering” things would never have occurred to them, at least not that they can remember. Right now there’s a lot of talk about a big shot reporter who “misremembered” an incident that took place in Iraq. He remembers his helicopter being shot down, but it wasn’t so his explanation is that he “misremembered”. That is a kind of activity that I thought was the purview of children, or at least it used to be. I was really good at misremembering but my brother was better and so I usually got punished. Why would a well paid so called professional who makes a lot of money do it? There is a certain class that seems to misremember quite regularly. There is for instance a high government official who “misremembered” his entire life. He believed that he was raised in England, and it is family worked in a coal mine. Although I can’t understand how you would misremember your entire life, I really can’t understand misremembering history. Another one of our famous politician remembered all the black churches that were being burned by white racists in his State when he was growing up. Interestingly enough all the newspapers in the State didn’t remember any black churches ever being burnt in that state. So the interesting question arises who’s misremembering, all of the newspapers, or one individual politician?
Misremembering can prove to be very uncomfortable. Any of you men out there who plan on misremembering Valentine’s Day may want to try to remember not to. Remembering the real reason we celebrate Valentine’s Day sometimes proves to be difficult as well. We celebrate Valentine’s Day because the church chose to remember a pastor who helped martyrs during the persecution of Claudius II (the Goth) in Rome. Valentine is remembered for his bold witness for Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. To use someone’s horrible death in witness to Jesus to stuff ourselves with chocolate or buy roses seems like a good reason to deliberately misremember.
We also misremember, if we ever knew, that the day before Valentine’s Day Christians try to remember Aquila, Priscilla, and Apollos. Aquila and his wife Priscilla (Prisca), Jewish contemporaries of St. Paul, traveled widely. Because of persecution in Rome, they went to Corinth where they met the apostle Paul, who joined them in their trade of tentmaking (Acts 18:1-3). They, in turn, joined him in his mission of sharing the Christian Gospel. The couple later traveled with Paul from Corinth to Ephesus (Acts 18:18), where the two of them established a home that served as hospitality headquarters for new converts to Christianity. Apollos received further instruction in the faith from Aquila and Priscilla. An eloquent man, Apollos “spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus” (Acts 18:25). He later traveled from Corinth to the province of Achaia, where he “showed by the Scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus” (Acts 18:28). Aquila, Priscilla, and Apollos are all remembered and honored for their great missionary zeal.
Sometimes we misremember that the task of every Christian is to witness to Christ in word and deed in our vocation (whatever we do in life). Thank God that He never misremembers. He knows all about us and loves us anyway. He has pity on us because he knows our frame and remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103). He sent Jesus, remembering His holy covenant, the oath He swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days (Luke 1). Christ death on the Cross saved us from passing out of God’s memory forever and His resurrection means that we share His victory. Now all we do and say should be a reminder of His mercy.
