The problem is that in order to leave a legacy you must be a part of the past as well as the future. But today, we all seem to be running away from the past, doing our best to ignore it. The disruption of family life has hindered many people’s ability to have a true and rich sense of where they come from; they can see the future but they don’t look to the past because it’s full of brokenness and hurt. They tell themselves they can pave a new way and that things will be different and better for their own lives and families. But often things aren’t.
There is a type of security and assurance, which people have forgotten, that comes from being rooted in a family, a history and a place. When a society loses its rootedness like ours largely has, individuals no longer know their place in the world. They spend their lives trying to “find themselves” because they don’t have anyone who can say to them, this is who we are, this is where we’re from, and this is why it’s important. Instead we live as individuals all striving to create our own type of posterity. We don’t realize that our attempts to create it by and through ourselves alone will probably fail. No one will remember us because we, by ourselves, are not all that memorable.
So next time you’re bored and staring at your phone, why not give Grandma a ring and ask her to tell you a story about your family – about your past – instead of tweeting that latest selfie. You won’t need to think twice to know which will prove more memorable.
And today we celebrate...
