December 9, 2013
Greetings from the story,
Among the tribes of Native Americans, and the clans of Highlanders in Scotland, and in the nomadic peoples that have historically wandered through the Middle East, there is a thread of commonality as fine as DNA and as strong as cords of steel.
When we were in school we were forced to memorize all manner of things. I have occasionally thought that the reason my memory is so sketchy now is that my hard drive is filled up. Of course it’s not true. I really don’t need to erase the multiplication tables, the pledge of allegiance, the state capitols, or any of the really relevant porridge I memorized decades ago. I have the room to remember more if I choose to, if I am intentional about the gift I am given.
This week there were countless reports from South Africa about Nelson Mandela. Amid all of that I caught this one small piece of a background story, a tiny footnote to what Mr. Mandela endured, and what he inspired in others.
During Apartheid, black poets were not allowed to publish anything. It was against the law for them to even write down their poetry. Some authors went to prison for years just for the act of putting pen to paper.
These renegades were called ‘Struggle Poets’. In the time they waited for their justice, they continued to create messages that uplifted, provoked, and inspired hope. They passed the words to their audience in the same way that people all over the world have done for thousands of years. They spoke the words, and relied on their audience to remember them and share the message with others.
Story tellers exist in every culture, carrying the oral history of the tribe or the clan or the family. Before a time when the world was literate the only way to connect with the past, was through the spoken word. Sometimes travelers would move from village to village spreading news, or sharing old stories, but in every place there would be a story teller, an ‘imbongi’, a poet, or someone who would share stories through song.
But it seems strange to think that barely a generation ago that there were people who had to rely on this as a method of communicating ideas. Speaking a thing to another person, giving them a compelling reason to commit it to memory, and to share it with others.
It’s an interesting thought for us in our society. We have the freedom to express nearly anything. We have no need to memorize anything of significance. Anything we want to remember we can record, print, store in a thumb drive, or post on any of a myriad of places on the web. Perhaps this freedom has cost us a valuable strength we all could use.
As I rolled this around in my head this morning I am reminded of the phrase we all use to describe when we have memorized something. We say we have ‘learned it by heart’. It’s an easy cluster of words to skim over. It implies more than rote memorization. It is to know and remember the importance of the words.
Committing something to memory, knowing it by heart, can have a profound effect, depending on what you choose to remember. Think of the act of repeating your favorite quote, or a song with powerful imagery, or a prayer that always comforted.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Imagine; today you take a piece of poetry that inspires you and you commit to it. You learn it by heart. The act of repeating it, ingraining it in your memory, will change how you feel about it. It will also change how you feel about your day; it becomes the theme woven throughout everything else that passes around you.
It is a fundamental act that has a powerful connection in all humans. The act of knowing something so well it becomes part of our makeup. The art and science of remembering something meaningful for our own benefit, but so that we might also share it with others.
We are vessels. We can choose what we carry, and we choose what we share.
Hope this finds you filling your heart,
David
Copyright © 2013 David Smith
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