311: The Gift of Forgetting

The possibility of taking up both remembering and forgetting as intentional practices.



So that we can remember, and not forget, one another’s gifts and goodness, sacredness and possibility, strength and tenderness. So we can forget all that we hold onto in one another that keeps us from who we could be, and meet one another afresh in each brink of time.



And so we can remember what needs fixing and healing - so that it can be fixed and healed - and forget the patterns in us that break and hurt, so that we don’t continue repeating them.



Hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.



Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.



Here’s our source for this week:



The Gift of Forgetting



Forgetting has its uses. Were it not for our ability to forget, we would never be free from melancholy. No joyous occasion would dispel sadness. The events that could delight us would give us no pleasure, while we recalled every trouble of life. Even from the success of our hopes we could not expect to derive rest and peace of mind. We would never refrain from grieving. So both memory and forgetfulness, different and contrary as they are, are both gifts given to us, and each of them has its uses in our lives.



Bachya Ibn Pakuda, Duties of the Heart



Photo by Michael Jasmund on Unsplash