Things come to me out of the blue in the middle of the night. I awake to popular songs of days gone by playing in my head, poems I had to memorize in school, complete hymns (sometimes several verses worth), Bible passages,
Here are some examples:
A few nights ago I awoke to all nine Beatitudes from the fifth chapter of the Gospel According To Matthew in my head that I had to learn when I was 14. Another night I found myself remembering Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Not just "Fourscore and seven years ago", the whole thing. Another night I couldn't get Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Anabel Lee" out of my brain. Last week I knew all the words of the song "P.S., I Love You" that I probably haven't heard since Gisele Mackenzie sang it on Your Hit Parade back in the fifties. It's uncanny. Two nights ago it was a hymn that I sang in the Methodist church as a child and teenager that hadn't crossed my mind in 60 years:
Just when I need Him, Jesus is near,
Just when I falter, just when I fear;
Ready to help me, ready to cheer,
Just when I need Him most,
Refrain:
Just when I need Him most,
Just when I need Him most,
Jesus is near to comfort and cheer,
Just when I need Him most.
Just when I need Hin, He is my all.
Answering when upon Him I call;
Tenderly watching lest I should fall,
Just when I need Him most.
In the morning, I checked hymnary.org and discovered that what had come trippingly to my tongue turned out to be verses 1 and 4 of a hymn written in 1907. I didn't recogniize verses 2 and 3 at all, but then our little church often left verses out in the interest of time.
I am just as apt to remember an old cheer from high school football games:
Beat me, Daddy, eight to the bar,
Mansfield Tigers going mighty far;
Swing me, sugar, with a boogie beat,
We're the team that can't be beat!
or
Orange crush, lemon ice!
Hit 'em once, hit 'em twice,
Hit 'em high, hit'em low.
Come on, Tigers, let's go!
I'm not bragging, I'm sort of complaining, but only sort of. I'm walking the fine line between having a cross to bear and not looking a gift horse in the mouth. The other side of the coin is I often can't remember what we ate for dinner yesterday. I do think everything happens for a reason.
It's difficult to explain. If David Barlow of Tooele/Manti/Ephraim, Utah a.k.a. Putz were still around, he would understand completely.
I miss him.
If I start naming people I miss, we could be here all day.
I often do the same thing but can't remember what was said a few minutes ago. Ah, old age.
ReplyDeleteEmma, last night it was more of an earwig, the opening line of the Gatlin Brothers song, "All the gold in California (is sitting in a bank in Beverly Hills in somebody else's name)
Delete. over and over. Drove me crazy. Bet you thought I was there already. It's good to hear from you.
Interestingly I used to use the words "Everything happens for a reason." a lot. I genuinely believed that it did. You have, however, made me wonder. Does it? If so why? Unfortunately I am no longer of an age to start my thought processes and my wondering all over again. I am very tempted, though.
ReplyDeleteGraham, I was thinking in simple terms, that maybe we learn and retain all these things in our long-term subconscious memory so that when we are old we can remember them and apply their lessons to the circumstances of our lives at that point..
DeleteI miss Putz as well. It took me a long time to understand his unique way of writing but I eventually did. Good guy.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure these things reappear in our brains for some reason, even if just to remind us of times long gone
kylie, I for one think our Creator has something to do with it, reaching out to us by every means at His disposal.
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