Sometimes memories are mysterious to me.
The other day I was listening to some music when “A Horse With No Name” by America began playing. Immediately my mind was transported back in time to an experience that happened about 35 years ago. I have this flashback every single time I hear this song. I have no idea why I have so closely associated this song with this experience.
What’s the experience? Well, it was nothing special. I am standing in line at the “Stop and Go” convenience store located on Knight Arnold near Getwell in Memphis. I am waiting to pay for a slush when I hear “A Horse With No Name” come on the radio.
Yes, sometimes memories are mysterious. The following words from Buechner have helped eveytime I hear “A Horse With No Name” become a moment of theological wonder.
“Maybe the most sacred function of memory is just that: to render the distinction between past, present, and future ultimately meaningless; to enable us at some level of our being to inhabit that same eternity which it is said that God himself inhabits.”
–Frederick Buechner