The Meaning of the Moment
Have you bought or saved anything to commemorate the Coronation of King Charles III? I must admit my family have been a bit bah humbug about the whole thing. My husband is Australian and has a rather ambivalent attitude towards the monarchy and this seems to have infected the family. However, I have been determined to join in with the celebrations - including a picturesque tea party on our village green – not because I am an ardent monarchist but because I want to participate in some way with an event that is part of our collective history. I didn’t go as far as to buy a coronation mug or those commemorative plates that some people display on their walls, but I confess I did squirrel away a copy of the day’s newspaper and a flag from our coronation street party – all of which my husband and kids think is hilarious.
I do have a bit of a magpie tendency and over the years have amassed a collection of items that relate to some of the most significant moments in my lifetime; newspapers published on notable dates, such as the death of Princess Diana and the terrible day of 9/11, a programme from the Tutankhamun exhibition when it first visited the UK and other more recent documents such as the advice pamphlet sent out by the government at the beginning of Covid. However, I find it very hard to work out what might be worth saving for future generations and what is truly ephemeral.
I have always loved museum exhibitions and reconstructions that gather items from a particular period to conjure up an impression of that time: 1950s kitchens recreated complete with vintage food cans, Tupperware and Pyrex dishes; wartime ephemera such as ration books, posters and Ministry for Food leaflets and toys from my childhood. None of these are the kind of things that most of us think of keeping for posterity (even with my magpie brain I can’t imagine keeping the kind of things that I currently have in my cupboards for future generations).
The problem is that most of the time, we live on autopilot on a day-to-day basis and fail to recognise the significance of the moments we are living through, or that one day our celebrations and challenges will form the stuff of school curricula and history texts. Major events, such as the coronation of a king, stand out in our minds, but it is often only with hindsight that we can recognise the true significance of the times. In the same way, it often hard to recognise the way that God is at work in our lives as we make our way through the world. It’s often only when we look back that we are able to recognise the kairos moments of our existence.
Aristotle once said that memory is the scribe of the soul – one of those ideas that I collected and eventually turned into the title of my latest book Soul’s Scribe. I wrote this book because I believe that God wants us to develop a greater awareness of the significance of our life and times; and for us to be able to recognise how he is guiding the trajectory of our own personal and collective history.
We can, however, only develop that awareness by first looking back, tracing the meaning of our own history and recognising that the seemingly random occurrences of our lives are actually part of a bigger pattern – His plan. And then, having looked back, we are then able to look forward with a new awareness; to see our lives as an adventure, full of purpose and meaning.
This is why I looked back and eventually wrote my memoir Sea Changed, and I wrote Soul’s Scribe to help you to do as I have done and to look back over your life and to see where God has been at work, and in doing so to gain a greater awareness as you live forwards of the meaning of the moment that you are living through.
Kate Nicholas is a preacher, Christian author, broadcaster and consultant. Visit Kate’s website www.katenicholas.co.uk to find out more about her books, TV show, online courses and blog Faith, Life and Cancer.