past on Digging up the Past

“No, don’t! Don’t dig up the past! Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye.” But the proverb goes on to say: “forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.”

Barbara Brown Taylor recounts her first experience with caving, the exploration of caves that are not prepared or made easily accessible for inexperienced explorers. Her guides gave her a bit of helpf...

At some point in childhood we all make the powerful discovery that we can manipulate the truth about ourselves.

“Shall we never never get rid of this Past? … It lies upon the Present like a giant’s dead body.”

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

When we remember the past, it is not only the past; it breaks into the present and gains a new lease on life.

“What’s past is prologue.”

In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...

In her excellent little book (Mythical Me), Richella Parham describes the importance of looking on the past with grace: Developing a redemptive memory requires recalling not only the pain of the pas...

The only way to get rid of your past is to make a future out of it. God will waste nothing.

The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experienc...

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

“When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.”

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

“… truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future.”

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

Learn from the past, prepare for the future, live in the present.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light fo...

Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence.

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!  Let the dead Past bury its dead!  Act,—act in the living present!  Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Maybe the most sacred function of memory is just that: to render the distinction between the past, present, and future ultimately meaningless: to enable us at some level of our being to inhabit that s...

It’s okay to look at the past and the future. Just don’t stare.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Repentance resulting from self-examination is a lifelong endeavor, occasionally surfacing in the public or private act of confession as an act of “courageous memory” in recalling one’s past.

We just philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It's so clear, you see, that if we're to begin living in the present, we must first of all redeem our past and then be done with it f...

Leave the broken, irreversible past in God's hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

“Atonement was powerful; it was the lock on the door you closed against the past.”

The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope ...