MEMORY LOSS

I’ve left my stick behind.

It was a new one, too – a 2gig flash drive; new, cheap, and loaded with a few important things… assignments, sermon ideas, photos and some music. And I’ve gone and left it behind. Detached Alzheimer’s? Complete memory loss?

It was last seen transferring a document to be printed in a library. Where else but a world of irony can you have A FORGOTTEN MEMORY STICK?

I can't believe how relient I am on things like a memory stick, a laptop computer and wireless internet access. Stupid, really.

I used to have one of those small electronic address books. It could hold more phone numbers that I really needed, reminded me of my own birthday, and had the top one hundred part-numbers that you need to know to repair a Boeing 747.

It was a big one, too – thirty-four kilobytes. That’s less than the average pointless-joke email now, and probably half the space that this note takes. A digital photo of a 747 is between 100 and 500 megabytes.

Why do we need so much memory? How many of my emails do I genuinely need to SAVE, and how many am I actually likely to remember… in my head?

A thirty-four kilobyte memory won’t get you too far today. So why couldn’t I remember a 2gig stick? Or – as my wife would dryly note – the garbage, some milk or my tablets?

What should I be remembering?

REMEMBER the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… (Ex20:8)
REMEMBER your Creator in the days of your youth… (Eccl12:1)

Is there any kind of memory loss that is actually worthwhile?

“I will REMEMBER their sins no more…” (Heb8:12 / Jer31:34)

Don’t forget to say your prayers tonight. Okay?

On A Train...

So what is it about the train that brings about the worst in humanity? I don’t mean like senseless murder or genocide or Apple laptops… I mean isolation. Isolation on a train.

The loudest conversation on the train I’m on at the moment is the graffiti. It’s telling me that, well, I probably won’t want to shake Zed’s hand. And there’s someone out there called “Proe”. But it’s telling me more than the five other real live people are telling me, and they’re sitting across from me on my train.

And it’s more than I’m telling them on this train.

We’d prefer isolation. We court it and we aggressively display it. Don’t believe me? Talk loudly into your phone and watch people around you. Why do we bring our own bubble to the train – our own headspace? Why would I rather type this into my laptop rather than discuss it with my… neighbour? Why don’t I want to call them my neighbour on a train?

Why the barrier on a train?

Bounce. Sway. The social origami of reading & folding a broadsheet newspaper. The quiet tchik-tchik-tchik-tchik of MP3 headphones in the ears of half the commuters. The cinema-in-the-seat laptops playing pirated copies of the latest Batman film. People writing new thoughts for blogs… Everything and everyone screams DON’T TOUCH ME! on a train.

How can I reach out to touch someone… if I’d resent someone doing the same to me on a train?

How can I see public transport as a legitimate mission-field… when I’d cringe at the thought of someone evangelizing me on a train?

We all get to hide in plain sight on a train.