What You Are Not Permitted To Forget (April 24, 2005)

I saw on the news that yet another soloist at a sporting event forgot the words to the national anthem. Soprano Caroline Marcil mangled "The Star Spangled Banner" at a hockey exhibition in Quebec. But she had a good excuse: she's Canadian. (I don't know the words to "O Canada.") What I can't figure out is why so many American singers continue to screw up the song. Anthem anomalies are legendary and legion - my favorite is the one about some tenor at a baseball game who froze after "the rockets' red glare" and improvised "George Washington was there" before giving up. (Historical note: George Washington wasn't there.)

Polls show that only one-third of Americans know the words to Francis Scott Key's masterpiece. Included in the memory-challenged two-thirds are athletes and coaches who have heard the thing 10,000 times. Not to brag, but I even know the secondary stanzas ("Oh thus be it ever, when free men shall stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation") because I heard them in 7th grade.

On the other hand, my memory is so porous in other areas that people could think I'm brain damaged. When it comes to driving, I need directions to places I've been to many times before because I can't remember geographical squat. Faces are another problem - if I'm ever mugged, my attacker is in luck because I won't be able to give the police a description. ("Did he have facial hair?" "Umm." "Was he wearing glasses?" "Could be, could be." "Could you pick him out of a lineup?" "I could pick my wife and kids out of a lineup - after that it gets fuzzy.")

We forget different kinds of things, even important things. That is human nature and human folly. And that is why, as individuals and as community, we must work hard to thwart unholy amnesia from robbing us of all that is truly valuable.

This coming Sunday, as is the tradition in most evangelical churches on the first Sunday of the month, we will obey our Lord's command to remember him by celebrating communion. The Lord's Supper involves, among other things, a deliberate calling to mind of the sacrifice Jesus made to deliver us from sin and save our souls. Taking the bread and the cup, we give thanks for the blood-bought redemption that, perhaps, we seldom otherwise think about. It is good and right to partake and give thanks. If you are a Christian, remember to go to church this Sunday. Of course, you should go every Sunday, but especially when our Lord's suffering and death are commemorated. Don't forget.