Do You Remember, Too?

My last post looked at soul DNA. We know we have bodily DNA. Is part of that blueprint spiritual as well? This post is going to investigate what kind of information it might hold. I’d like to propose it holds the road map to each other, and to God. I’d like to propose that our very existence is such that we are programmed knowing the way home. We were designed that way. St. Augustine is famous for having said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, Oh God.” I heard it for years before deciding maybe he was onto something. Before I noticed all the things vying for our attention were inferior substitutions for what what we truly seek.

Soul DNA Holding a Map – or Holding a Memory

I remember Heaven. I can see it. It doesn’t seem like a vision as much as a memory. As though I’ve been there. Of course, my Church teaches that we don’t exist before this life, that I couldn’t actually “remember” it. What is this thing I think I remember, then? It’s possibly just my imagination. But that’s not what I believe. I feel strongly that it’s a vision based on reality. It seems tactile, known, familiar, home.

What if we all have a source, and an end, and that source/end is sort of imprinted on our DNA? What if we all can intuit our maker and our home because it’s part of the building block of who we are? Just as we know our mother’s voice, what if we instinctively know our Creator and our real home? Just as an infant intuitively crawls toward the breast, what if we instinctively have within us the building blocks to reach toward Heaven, toward each other? What if, just as that infant’s DNA programs him/her to make such a crawl, our DNA programs our restless hearts to seek what we cannot yet know, yet, somehow, we do know, we do remember?

I’m using “Heaven” and “Each other” interchangeably. That’s an odd choice, seemingly. Those sound like very different things. We do not create Heaven. We do not manufacture it through acts of unity. However, we do take a step toward it through acts of unity. We do not create it; it created us. But, as I have said in past blog posts (Help Me to Heaven, Coming Back Together) Heaven’s identity is not individual. The divine arms seek to embrace all God’s children together. We are a step closer to Heaven when we stop fighting each other for a spot. And this blog post is suggesting that we are not on our own to understand how to do that. We have the great teachers and sages; we have Scripture and the model/instructions in it; and, importantly, we have instructions within ourselves. We have the blueprint on our hearts. Our maker ensured that we have a sense for the path in our very DNA. Perhaps our physical DNA, or perhaps, as I suggested in my last blog post, in some kind of Soul DNA.

I remember it. Maybe it’s a memory; maybe it’s a vision; maybe it’s just a tapping in to a roadmap on my DNA. But I remember. I see. It’s no less real than the person standing in front of me. Can you see it, too?

Trying to Articulate the Memory

We know this world of ours isn’t forever. We know it will eventually blow up or be hit by a comet or something. And we know we aren’t forever. We know we die someday. We know our jobs and our trophies and our possessions will go away someday. Knowing this doesn’t make me feel grim. It makes me feel like pushing past it and asking, “Well, if it doesn’t last forever, then what does?”

The answer doesn’t feel like make believe. It doesn’t feel like something I invented. It feels like something I already know because I’ve seen it. It’s a memory, but not a memory I acquired in my life. Not a memory like what I had for dinner last night or what I wore on my first day of kindergarten. Those are acquired memories. I didn’t have that with regard to what’s beyond this world. I didn’t have a near death experience and go to Heaven for three minutes, for example. Instead, it’s a memory like knowing the sound of someone’s voice, someone you haven’t heard in decades, but suddenly they reappear and you’re transported to another time, the time you knew them. I can hear echoes from ancient times before my life. What is that?

My tradition, the Christian tradition, teaches that before we lived in this world, God created Adam and Eve to live forever in a “paradise.” It wasn’t separate from this Earth, but it wasn’t this world of decay and death. It was a world without death. A forever world. Then, somehow, we ended up here. Christianity teaches it’s because of sin. I’d like to tackle that word in another blog post, because I think there are a lot of misconceptions around it. For today, let’s assume that sin is whatever takes us out of that place.I’m not Eve, and I wasn’t alive then, but I remember it. It’s in my DNA. I believe it’s in all of ours, because it’s where we came from. Or where we’re going. Maybe we’re not supposed to go back the way we came. Maybe the way forward is a new way completely. It’s ancient wisdom from before time that resides in everyone.

This is My Memory – What is Yours? Let it Speak.

I would like to invite us to let it speak. To allow ourselves to break from the distractions of this world of decay and experiment with trying to tap into that time. That ancient wisdom. That genetic memory. Please join me. Let yourself sit in silence for just a few minutes. This is one of the hardest things to do in our day. We have created so many distractions for ourselves. I sometimes wonder why we have done so. Why we have created so many distractions. Why we have made a world in which silence and stillness are “solved” like a disease. Why constant stimulation in sight, sound, music, commercials, tweets, messages, work, is all but unavoidable. We have created this world. Why? I wonder why we run away from the silence. Perhaps because the silence isn’t silent at all. It is wild and unpredictable, potent and surprising, deeper than we dare venture. It is a memory of our deepest home. I believe there is an ancient wisdom within each of us, and stillness and silence are the only conditions in which it bubbles up.

It attempts to bubble up elsewhere, in any condition, but ignored, it finds expression the melancholy lost-ness of our era. It needn’t be so. We carry within ourselves the Grand Canyon. Layers upon layers of story, ready for study and ready to be followed back to the source. When one observes the Grand Canyon, an appropriate response is awe. Its vastness overwhelms the observer, and causes the person to halt. Body and mind halted, yet, spirit taking off. A rest for the busy distracted level of the self and, therefore, an opportunity to allow the deeper layer of the self to dance. Our day, however, is like an observer stepping up to the Grand Canyon and not being allowed a clear view. No sooner do we catch a glimpse when a friend calls to us saying, “Take my picture!” No sooner do we attempt to take it in when a giant billboard pops up in the back saying “Buy Snacky Smores!” No sooner do we attempt to take in in when a thousand fearful onlookers say “Don’t look at it! You’ll fall in!” Their fear is unfounded, but they convince you to stand on its edge looking at your phone. That is our world right now.

Will you join me in looking up? Sit with me for a few minutes. Literally just sit. Maybe close your eyes. And look with your soul. You’re not looking for anything in particular. Just notice the vastness. The rest will come. Be found there.