Remember To Remember
“I thank my God every time I remember you.” Philippians 1:3
In the book Gratitude Works, psychologist and Gratitude expert Robert Emmons begins by drawing an important connection between the practice of gratitude and memory.
He also goes on to share how religions tend to help this process through “litanies of remembrance.”
The sacraments in particular for the Christian tradition stand out, as Jesus states at the end of the words of institution for the Lord’s Supper: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Gratitude is about remembering!
If there is a crisis of gratitude in contemporary life, as some have claimed, it is because we are collectively forgetful.
We have lost a strong sense of gratitude about the freedoms we enjoy, a lack of gratitude toward those who lost their lives in the fight for freedom, and a lack of gratitude for all the material advantages we have.
Furthermore, we don’t even realize that we have become forgetful because we can’t ever remember being different.
The machinery in our minds that causes us to forget our benefits operates so seamlessly that we cannot detect its workings.
However, grateful people draw on positive memories of being the recipients of benevolence, a giftedness that is neither earned nor deserved.
This is why religious traditions are able to so effectively cultivate gratitude—litanies of remembrance encourage gratitude and religions do litanies very well. The scriptures, sayings, and sacraments-of-faith traditions inculcate gratefulness by drawing believers into a remembered relationship with a Supreme Being and with members of their faith community.
A French proverb states that gratitude is the memory of the heart. The memory of the heart includes the memory of those we are dependent on just as the forgetfulness of dependence is unwillingness or inability to remember the benefits provided by others.
Do you want to be a grateful person? Then remember to remember.
Make it a habit to remember the good God has given to you.
“I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers” Philemon 1:4