Memoir:
Spiritual legacy, spiritual mystery
We think we know ourselves well enough to write about our life, but the effort seems daunting, and its value dubious. After all, how do we begin to choose which stories to tell from all the days, and months, and years? And who cares?
First, writing always tells us more about ourselves than we thought we knew, and that’s not always a bad thing.
Second, life writing is not as daunting as most people make it out to be. It just has to be honest. Of course, honesty can be daunting.
Third, unlike an autobiography, a memoir is not a recording of everything we’ve ever done in chronological order. A memoir focuses on recollections of the moments, episodes, periods, or people in our lives who were important to us, and whose impact manifested consequential changes in us, good as well as bad. The panoply doesn’t have to be arranged in any particular sequence, although one’s emotional and psychological growth should, in a fashion, build logically throughout.
Fourth, no life is ordinary. No life is without miracles and magic, great loss and great love. No life, other than their own, is more crucial for our progeny to understand than ours, because they share more than our genetics; they share our spiritual DNA, as well. What made us who we are, helps them understand who they can become. We leave them more than stories. We leave them meaning and hope.
Finally, the real reason most of us do not attempt to write our stories is the dread that sooner or later the writing will force us to take a look at those things we’d rather not see or feel again. These reservations are understandable, but they discount the healing power of enlightenment. We write about our lives, the glory and the gaffes, to know ourselves anew, and love ourselves despite our fallibilities. We are human, after all.
As we recount how we became who we became, we contemplate our metaphysical as well as our physical nature, and wonder if there is a transcendent reason why we became who we became. Why am I me? Is there something expected of me in this life that cannot be rendered by anyone else?
This inquiry, then, raises our personal writing into brave, new territory. We look back to see the good for what it gave and the bad for what it took. To pay tribute to effort. To endurance. To survival. We learn that we are central to eternity, and entrusted between the ancients and the children who are still stars, to bear witness and advocate the soul. To preserve the evolution of spiritual clarity and humanity’s hope.
And to show what love is.