OK I accept the fact that the "butterfly effect" makes travel to the past unwise, you never know what any action you make to change the past will affect the future in adverse ways. We learned that from the movie back to the future when they had to undo the alternate Biff timeline when he got hold of the future sports scores.
I wander what happens when a bad memory of an event is healed in the present? In other words, you took a scar and turned it into a star. You have changed the you future for the better. I think that is why transformation is better that regret and wishing we could change the past. 2
The other big issue that has crossed my mind lately in this regard is God's need to put some people through really crappy lives in order to accomplish His purposes. The illustration I am currently using is generation 3-9 of the sons of promise in Egypt.
They were slaves so God would have a large number of them to fulfill His promise to Abraham that a great nation would come from his seed. But what was the quality of their life and freedom???? There is a past that needs to be recompensed in a future life. Just thinkin.
2 comments:
The lead pastor at our church, Randall (have you found Randall's blog yet?), did a sermon about the parable of the talents a few weeks ago. After the service I asked him if it's possible that the talents/bags of gold do not just represent the GOOD things that God gives us but if they could represent the BAD stuff of life as well. If the bags are merely "what God gives us" and the story is about what do we do with it/how do we transform it or are willing to transform it/be transformed by it.
Neither Marc or Randall liked my metaphor extension, but I think there's something there.
Even as I've explored some narrative psych interventions this semester, I've seen in my own life how happy memories do not always reveal good things and that it is often in the tough/painful stuff that good things grow.
Btw, how much Henri Nouwen have you read? He is the king of "the flower breaking through the concrete" and other amazing images of hope in the midst of despair.
Lots of Nouwen, one of my humble heros.
Good thoughts, Dixie
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