Contemplating place, as I did recently, also conjures thinking about identity. What do they have to do with each other? We know humans are sacred in that we have been created in the image of God, imago dei. But we also know we have been desecrated by sin.
But if, as a Christian, our sins have been taken away as far as the East is from the West, is there something of an erasure of our past? Perhaps, like Dante who bathed in both the river Lethe (washed away all memories) and the river Eunoe (restored only the knowledge of the good), our “new life” in Christ is what actually makes our existence sacred again. Otherwise, we would remain desecrated by sin.
When we think of identity, we must also wonder if we are the history of all our experiences, decisions, and thoughts? Does our past merely exist in our memory? To think about it another way, are we more our self now in this present moment than the memory of our past or the potential of our future? Or, are we the sum of our past, present, and future?
Undoubtedly, this is a fairly esoteric post, so I want to remind you that you don’t have to read my blog every day. Sometimes, I’m just probing.
Keep probing