Born Remembering

Pendle Hill Pamphlets

by Elise Boulding

Everyone has had some experience of early childhood remembering: remembering an otherness not to be explained by family experiences, stories heard, events witnessed. Why is it that we are born remembering, and live forgetting? Is this a joke that God would share with us, but that we can only laugh at in the moment when we have come full circle, and remember again? That coming full circle and remembering again is no laughing matter however. It is a conversion experience, literally, and life cannot go on as before. This happened to me very recently, and I am going to spend these pages in reflecting on the remembering, and the forgetting, and the remembering, as I have experienced it in my own life.

30 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 28, 1975

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This pamphlet is a testimony of a woman’s journey into a religious life centered on solitude and worship and “remembering” the presence of God, a greater spirit, in her life. By the end, I had grown to embrace her use of remembering, forgetting and remembering as the phases of one’s existence, if one opens to it. The first as s child, is the exploration and discovery and learning of all the wonder that is life, Nature, everything.

Then the trappings of modernity, society, secular materialism, affluence and family lead to a period of forgetting. Of self centeredness. Of meaningless.

Then if one is open and takes the opportunity, there comes the remembering that which gives purpose to existence. Fewer and fewer these days seem called to it. The simplifying, the silence, the presence, the inner balance, the wonder, the peace.

Whereas it comes naturally as a child, Boulding explains the intentionality and commitment required for her path. It’s an engaging read that might lead one to consider where they are in their own journey of remembering, forgetting and hopefully, remembering anew.