Episode 2: Remember Me
Greetings Friends! I hope you’re doing well, and if you’re not, I FEEL YOU DOE!
Chopping Board:
There is wisdom in my community that I can tap into. I can access this wisdom through study and reflection. I can learn from the mistakes of others. I can also learn from successes and scale them for my own purposes.
Fish Sandwich
Psalm 119:105-112 NRSV
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to observe your righteous ordinances. I am severely afflicted; give me life, O LORD, according to your word. 1Accept my offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your ordinances. I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts. Your decrees are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.
Remember ME.
Around the November holiday in 2017, an incredible, dynamic, and magnificent movie called Coco was released. Coco is a story that follows a young boy who dances between the land of the living and the land of the ancestors. Caught up in a whimsical adventure, Miguel goes on a quest to receive a blessing from his family, meet people in the great cloud of witnesses that he’s never met before on Earth, and restore music to a family traumatized by the music business. Throughout the movie, the audience is introduced to the practice of altar remembrances. Of course, while this was a culturally specific practice in Mexico and the story is also an educational one about Día de los Muertos, I related to it even as a so-called Black American. I can relate to the significance of maintaining a space that honors the ancestors.
Somewhere in the house, I bet, there is a collection of family photos that remind us of our loved ones, both here and beyond. We love to hold on to an obituary. And if you’re like some of the people in my family, somewhere in your house is a drawer or a folder full of graduation programs. There is something sacred about holding on to these memories and visual aids.
Coco came out in 2017 and was warmly received by audiences because of its multi-layered truth. It was a story about family. About tradition. About the dehumanizing nature of borders. About bringing together communities that had been torn apart. Child psychologists praised the movie for offering a culturally responsible and developmentally appropriate way to talk with children about death and distance.
One of the most compelling songs of the movie was one called “Remember Me.” And in it, there was a song that served as a glue for the characters throughout the town. Everyone knew this song:
“Remember me
Though I have to say goodbye
Remember me
Don't let it make you cry
Forever if I'm far away
I hold you in my heart
I sing a secret song to you
Each night we are apart
Remember me
Though I have to travel far
Remember me
Each time you hear a sad guitar
Know that I'm with you
The only way that I can be
Until you're in my arms again
Remember me.”
Remember me.
Beloveds, in this season, what do you remember? Who do you remember? Give yourself a moment to just reflect on the last “normal” day you remember. The days before it was closed. The days when we could hug without caution.
What do you do when the world has changed and nothing feels stable? When your very routines have been disoriented and your life-sustaining community feels so sprawled out?
We are not the first of the only to miss the fellowship of the saints. There are people who have been separated from families, people who have not gotten phone calls while incarcerated, people who have been forgotten while homebound, people who have been cut off from family.
And of course, there are people in this text. If this historic moment teaches us anything, may it teach us empathy with people who are absent.
What distinguishes this psalm from so many others is its length. It is the longest psalm. We get sentences like “I love your law,” and “your law is truth,” “I love your commandments.” Progressive Christians in 2020 might poke holes at this supposed obsession with the text. But it might serve us well to have a little more empathy.
After all, the people who would be hearing and reciting this passage at this time were dealing with great trauma. This is a people who are coming to understand the Word as more and more important in a post-exilic period. Nothing is stable, nothing is consistent, and everything is always up in the air.
Yet you may have learned in your own way that God’s word becomes the foundation of strong communities. Every community needs a covenant, Every community needs a set of principles, every community needs a guidepost. The Black Panther Party had a Ten Point Program, which helped them orient new members into the fellowship. Included in these ten points were freedom, self-determination, full employment, housing, an end to capitalism under any color, land and so much more. Every community needs a set of principles that help guide them.
I’ll speak for my own folk. As Christians, we must become more biblically literate. We cannot just read the word as personal devotional, but we must also find ways to take the stories and lessons and apply them to our own lives. We must find ways to make the words come alive and mean something for every person. Even when we find ourselves arguing with the text itself, but we’ll get to that a little later.
Your word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path.
The word, for this community, is not a list of do’s and don’ts. It’s not a set of rules. It is instead a resource that helps gird one for spiritual battle against powers and principalities, against wickedness in high places. This word helps us understand the world around us, it helps us make sense of the nonsensical.
This word is a guidepost, a place to rest when the world is weary-making. This word becomes an anchor, a centering tool, a place to get grounded. The word, throughout this psalm, is something that helps us focus on the end goal, something that gets us through long nights. And my friends, the word must be Life-bringing.
I will put it to you like this. I have been inside since March 15. I miss my beloveds. And even worse, it has been difficult to watch the world continue to some extent without me. Psychotherapists predict that this historic moment will be a shared traumatic event for people all over the world, one that completely disorients our sense of self and identity for years to come. We can empathize with the psalmists’ lament. “I am severely afflicted, give me life o Lord, according to your word.” Order my steps in your word dear Lord.
So one of the first things I did upon settling into my home was purchase my own hymnal. I could have liberated it from the sanctuary but I chose to be honest. I needed to be reminded of the words of my community. So I find myself turning to the pages and singing even to myself, dreaming of the days when we will be able to sing Blessed Assurance together in the flesh. Singing the songs of our community can be an affirming grounding tool.
The psalmist teaches us that What you practice is what you become. And we get to discern which parts of the heritage we hold on to. Vulnerably so, the psalmist says “your decrees are my heritage forever, they are the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.”
Which begs the question, what things do we keep, and what things do we modify?
Those of us who take our slave heritage seriously must remember that Bibles and Laws and Ordinances and Statutes and Acts have not always been our friends. Bible stories have been used to justify our enslavement, our brutal treatment, our oppression. The people who hate us have found ways to take the bible and twist it in their favor, They’ve learned how to make the Word do something it should not. They’ve stepped into the part of the texts where they are the king, the conqueror, the winner, and imagined everyone else as their prize. They’ve used the text to oppress others. The devil can quote scripture. And sadly, some of us have internalized these anti-Black interpretations of the text. We have learned how to repeat the theologies and obsessions of some of our enslavers. It becomes our responsibility as Black people who love God to discern which heritage we hold on to. That’s a lot of work! And quite honestly, I cannot blame people who have decided to walk away completely.
But. The psalmist reminds us to observe the “righteous ordinances.” You might miss it if you move too quickly. So often, we code Righteous as Holier Than Thou. Righteous is so often used to describe people who are super saved. Super sanctified. They don’t do anything secular. The Hebrew word for righteousness is related to the word for justice. Righteousness isn’t about how many services you go to. It’s about how you treat people, It’s about doing things that make this world safer for everyone. It’s about fairness, equity, justice.
Part of our righteous inheritance is creative interpretation. We’ve found ways to write ourselves into the future, when the world didn’t want us to exist. Virginia Hamilton did the work of finding legacy. She researched and retold myths and fables that were part of the oral tradition and saved them in books like “The People could Fly” and “her Stories.” She reclaimed stories that were in danger of being forgotten or lost. She helped recover sacred cultural maps that our ancestors used. In doing so, for generations to come, we have evidence that Black people have told stories with political commentary, that we were theologians, that we were artists, that we were philosophers, that we were musicians, that we were architects and dreamers and spiritual leaders.
We reclaim these narratives because Our humanity as Black people has often been left out of the Christian narrative. You don’t believe me? Do you know that racial terror mobs often met after church? How many self-professed Christians find themselves at hate rallies? How many people pray for the salvation of all God’s children, only to vote for wars that kill those same Brown children? How many people tell the world they believe in Jesus, while making hell on Earth for their neighbors? What about the Word has taught people to hate others? What kind of God do we want to serve?
The psalmist reminds us that Affirmations help ground us. Affirmations help us imagine the world we want to live in. They help focus us when the world around us is moving too fast. It’s why Whitley Gilbert used to remind herself, “Relax, Relate, Release.” This text begs us to think about the passages that keep us focused on the world as it ought be. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you’re feeling stressed, if you’re feeling nervous, you are not alone. Return to the lamp that makes the path more traversable. Return to the decrees of the Lord that serve as the joy of your heart.
Remember Miguel I was telling you about earlier? Who was going on an adventure between the land of the living and the land of the dead? Well, he learned that his very elderly great-grandmother on Earth was beginning to forget her father. And if Mama Coco forgot her father, his memory would be lost forever. In the story and in his tradition, pictures are kept on the ofrenda and they are honored as ancestors. But Mama Coco’s father’s picture was not on the ofrenda. So Miguel wondered, how can I bring the memory back to Mama Coco? How can we keep our great-great-grandfather’s memory alive, without a photo? Without a family reunion? Without in-person gathering?
Miguel began to sing the song of his family.
“Remember me
Though I have to say goodbye
Remember me
Don't let it make you cry
Forever if I'm far away
I hold you in my heart
I sing a secret song to you
Each night we are apart
Remember me
Though I have to travel far
Remember me
Each time you hear a sad guitar
Know that I'm with you
The only way that I can be
Until you're in my arms again
Remember me.”
And as Miguel sang this song, Mama Coco came back to herself. The once-absent spirit somehow livened up. The music made Mama Coco come alive. The woman, who battled with fading memory, was now clued into remembering something sacred. The music of the ancestors has the power to start great reflections. You’ve seen this happen. For people my age, I challenge you to play “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” by the temptations or “The Payback” by James Brown for someone in your parents’ age group. And just ask, “whatchu know about this song? Where were you when this song came out?” Music has the power to unlock memories that we cannot access otherwise. It brings people together, it sparks conversations, it opens up entire worlds for people.
Psalms also have the power to do this.
Your decrees are my heritage forever, they are the joy of my heart.
Remember me.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou ART with me.
Remember Me.
Great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies WE see. (Not a psalm, but it should be.)
Remember Me.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 2 My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.
Remember ME.
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
Remember ME.
One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
Remember me
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Remember me
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Remember the one who loves you, who counts the hairs on your head, who knows exactly what you need and conspires to make sure you get it. Remember these words.
Be blessed.
Amen.
To Go Bag
Sometime this week, write down an affirmation. Perhaps it’s a song lyric, or a line from a movie, or a quote from your favorite writer. What is the word that you will come back to that is life-giving? What keeps you grounded?
Thanks so much for listening to Fish Sandwich Heaven podcast. You can follow us for now on Instagram at @FishSandwichHeaven or check out our website at fishssandwichheaven.com.
May your day be filled with pleasant things. You deserve it!