LECTURE 5
ON HOW TO LOOK ON THE PAST IN A MORE DILIGENT MANNER.
We are often admonished by our elders and teachers to let go or say forget the past and to focus completely on the future. This, I wouldn’t say, is entirely misleading as they may come with perculiar reasons. More so, it may speak to each man diffferently. But that said, many in taking such words of guidance at face value, have fallen headlong into the arms of death.
Should you ask my opinion on that, I will rather caution that you forgo the future for the past. This may sound absurd but the Heavens bear me witness that it is the best of counsel to men “longing to number their days.” The Past and Present are the only episode of time worthy of every man’s contemplation. This is because, it is always with these two that history is written. It is also with the two that judgment is passed and shall be passed.
The future is always unknown and thus uncertain. To sit and count on it is a mark of foolishness. All we have is the ‘Past and Present’ and wisdom demands that we handle them well.
Should Sir Thomas Browne, who only lived centuries ago, be resurrected from eternal slumber; he would dutifully repeat these words to our ears; “AMUSE not thyself about the riddles of future things. Study prophecies when they are become histories, and part hovering in their causes.”
Those words of his which I never tire quoting continues:
“Eye well things past and present, and let conjectural sagacity suffice for things to come. There is a sober latitude for prescience in contingences of discoverable tempers, whereby discerning heads see sometimes beyond their eyes, and wise men become prophetical. Leave cloudy predictions to their periods, and let appointed seasons have the lot of their accomplishments. ’Tis too early to study such prophecies before they have been long made, before some train of their causes have already taken fire, laying open in part what lay obscure and before buried unto us. For the voice of prophecies is like that of whispering-places: they who are near, or at a little distance, hear nothing; those at the farthest extremity will understand all. But a retrograde cognition of times past, & things which have already been, is more satisfactory than a suspended knowledge of what is yet unexistent. And the greatest part of time being already wrapt up in things behind us; it's now somewhat late to bait after things before us; for futurity still shortens, and time present sucks in time to come. What is prophetical in one age proves historical in another, and so must hold on unto the last of time; when there will be no room for prediction, when Janus shall loose one face, and the long beard of time shall look like those of David's servants, shorn away upon one side, & when, if the expected Elias should appear, he might say much of what is past, not much of what's to come.”
What an incredible word! I’m always befuddled by the wisdom of this pious man. The wisdom in those words are inconceivable. The little toddler in Sunday School who has just been taught the Lord’s prayer would trace few of his lines in there.
Right from infancy, we have been warned on the dangers of looking back at the past. We are always cautioned to focus and amuse ourselves with the future. But what vain admonishment this is!
There is actually no harm in looking back at the past. It rather serves us well than harm. The fear of many, in reviewing or contemplating episodes of the past, have to do with them getting discouraged, depressed, broken or shattered. And honestly, I admit that those fears are genuine and I do sympathize with them on that.
I even recall hearing a story of a woman who committed suicide shortly after remembering an incident of the past. But this ought not to be so. Instances of these nature happen all because we do not know how well to look back at the past. The man who knows how to look upon it well, will find it a treasury filled with endless stores of peace; without the least frustration or agitation whatsoever.
“I will now call to mind my past foulness,” says St. Augustine, “and the carnal corruptions of my soul; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God.”
“For love of Thy love I do it;” says Augustine again, “reviewing my most wicked ways in the very bitterness of my remembrance, that Thou mayest grow sweet unto me.”
Goodness! See what great light the blessed saint sheds on us in his most eloquent confession. For there, he tells us explicitly that, his purpose for recalling his past life was not because he loved them. Rather, he professed to doing that just to love The Lord the more, despite the fact that they were bitter to recall. And truly, it is there in the past that a man can count and name his blessings. There is indeed little or no harm in reviewing the past.
In this particular lecture, all I seek to do is to teach a more lucid and a profitable manner to behold the past; a manner that will advance you unto good works and not unto evil. A manner that will make God grow sweet unto you as St. Augustine puts it.
To begin, if you will ever profit by looking back at the past or recalling any past incidence, endeavor to only do so with your UNDERSTANDING. Look on it first with the UNDERSTANDING without attaching any AFFECTION or EMOTION.
Let the UNDERSTANDING weigh its episode with earnest and mature deliberations before applying any EMOTION. The EMOTION should be applied gently so as not to create any moodiness or character in you. Just apply it as a kind of judge who is to give a verdict on the case presented by the UNDERSTANDING. Judge quickly and then pass a verdict, “for if thou wilt judge, you will not be judged”
Do not worry if the judgment is harsh. The harshest judgment will profit you the more; it will move you to appeal faster. Also, make it no problem of yours when your EMOTION or WILL does not pass the judgment in your favor; and do not also blame the UNDERSTANDING for not presenting a valid case before the judge, your EMOTION. As long as the UNDERSTANDING is unbiased, reckon the case presentation valid .
Hold yourself patiently in the box until the EMOTION exonerates you or pronounces you guilty. If you are pronounced guilty, do not be hurt, only cease on the present, by way of thoughts and deeds to render the verdict void. How do you do that? Very Simple. Throw yourself into the hands of God and He will faithfully bear you up in His arms. Give yourself over to godly sorrows and it will move you to that holy place and profession (the place of penance or repentance).
“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).
It will move you straight to the place where God will make all things new unto you. When this happens, the hurting past then become a healing past, and the one you passionately regretted will elevate itself to be a memorable one.
I know of many who committed great crimes and injustices in the past, but because they knew how to look back at it, they never found it frustrating or depressing. They only through it drove themselves over to the place of repentance, reconciling with their God.
The past only gets disturbing when it is first embraced with the WILL or EMOTION. If the WILL is moved either to love or hate its episode, the UNDERSTANDING will be unable to form a correct estimate of it; because the WILL or AFFECTION disguises it and imprints an incorrect idea. When this is again presented to the WILL or AFFECTION, which is already prepossessed, it redoubles its love and animosity, and pushing it over the wall, is utterly deaf to the voice of reason. A man in such a state will be gingered and excited to commit more folly than he did before. For such a man, it would be better if he had not looked upon it. And we may only caution that he “forgets those things which are behind, and reach forth unto those things which are before.”
I mean for a man predisposed to emotion, we may only caution that he “keeps striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won ‘him’ to himself” as that will be to him the surest way to “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
TIME! WHERE DIDST THOU THOSE YEARS INTER
By William Habington
Time! where didst thou those years inter
Which I have seen decease?
My soul's at war, and truth bids her
Find out their hidden sepulchre,
To give her troubles peace.
Pregnant with flowers doth not the Spring
Like a late bride appear?
Whose feather'd music only bring
Caresses, and no requiem sing
On the departed year?
The Earth, like some rich wanton heir
Whose parents coffin'd lie,
Forgets it once look'd pale and bare,
And doth for vanities prepare,
As the Spring ne'er should die.
The present hour, flatter'd by all,
Reflects not on the last;
But I, like a sad factor, shall
To account my life each moment call,
And only weep the past.
My memory tracks each several way
Since reason did begin
Over my actions her first sway:
And teacheth me that each new day
Did only vary sin.
Poor bankrupt Conscience! where are those
Rich hours but farm'd to thee?
How carelessly I some did lose,
And other to my lust dispose,
As no rent-day should be!
I have infected with impure
Disorders my first years.
But I'll to penitence inure
Those that succeed. There is no cure
Nor antidote but tears.