Remembering by Ros Bayes

Our pastor was recently speaking on what it means for us to remember Jesus. He pointed out that to re-member is to piece back together what is dis-membered, and he suggested that every time we come together as the Body of Christ, we are re-membering him in our very act of meeting in fellowship.

I looked up the etymology of remember. Some sources suggest that it comes from the Latin memorari, to be mindful. However, I like my pastor’s suggestion that it might come from membrum, the Latin for a limb.

I like it because it suggests that everything we write, even the fiction we imagine and create, begins in something we remember, however dimly, and by our words we are piecing these things back together again.

I decided to look at the derivation of the words for remember in some other languages. In French the verb is se souvenir, which literally means to come under something. In remembering events or people, we bring ourselves to stand in a place under those events, as if to relive them.

In German the verb is sich erinnern, which would literally mean to put oneself within, to recall inwardly. To go inside an event from the past, using the power of imagination and recall – a great way to describe the art of writing.

This is where my own knowledge of other languages runs out and I have to rely on Google translate. Apparently the Italian word is ricorda. Clearly there is a link to our English word record – a word which in turn derives from corda, the Latin for heart – in other words, to preserve something in the heart.

The Hawaiian word hoʻomanaʻo derives from a root word which encapsulates many ideas: thought, idea, belief, opinion, theory, thesis, intention, meaning, suggestion, mind, desire, want; to think, estimate, anticipate, expect, suppose, mediate, deem, consider. I suppose that in the act of remembering or recalling, all of these things are in a way reconstructed. The word can also be used for a keepsake, memorandum or memorial tablet.

I could go on, but languages with other alphabets are beyond my skill. However, from now on, whether I’m writing a factual account of events, or whether I’m putting into my fiction the memory of past places, events or feelings, I shall try to remind myself that I’m piecing something back together, bringing myself under or within something, taking out something that is preserved in my heart and establishing a memorial.

In particular, when I’m presenting the reader with the person of Jesus, whether by writing devotional material or by weaving faith into a story, I shall be piecing the picture of Him together for the readers, enabling them to come under or within the truth of who He is, bringing my love for Him from my heart and setting it out, and establishing a memorial, perhaps a bit like the stones that the ancient Israelites erected and gave names like Ebenezer (“up to this point the Lord has helped us”) whenever there was a significant event or action of God in their history which they wanted never to be forgotten.

Ros Bayes has 10 published and 4 self-published books, as well as some 3 dozen magazine articles. She is the mother of 3 daughters, one of whom has multiple complex disabilities, and she currently works for Through the Roof (www.throughtheroof.org) as their Training Resources Developer, and loves getting paid to write about disability all day. You can find her blog at http://rosbunneywriting.wordpress.com and her author page at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ros-Bayes/e/B00JLRTNVA/. Follow her on Twitter: @rosbwriting.