this past sunday, we sang one of my favorite old hymns in church and when we came to the following phrase, “my days of praise shall ne’er be past. while life and thought and being last” i suddenly flashed back to my childhood when i would spend a few minutes mulling that phrase over and over in my brain every time we sang the song, wondering what exactly “being last” had to do with christianity. i usually decided it had something to do with the whole humility, first-shall-be-last, thing that the bible talks about (somewhat related to the “me-firsters are always last” rule that my mom frequently intoned). i turned to mr. happy stuff and tried to explain this flashback to him and he gave me this look that either said he thought i was making it up or that i was nuts or that i shouldn’t be talking in church or maybe all of the above. nonetheless, it is something that has always niggled the memory stick in my brain every time i’ve ever sung it and it’s nice to take a second to consciously remember this thought. sort of like realizing that every time i sing about “the old rugged cross” i picture a wooden cross with carpet samples stapled all over it.
and speaking of memory sticks in my brain… when i was little, before i had ever seen a picture of a brain, i had a fully formed image of what it must look like. in my imagination, it was similar to a ball of clay with toothpicks stuck all over it–and each toothpick had a little piece of paper with a memory written on it and that’s how the brain worked. i remember the first time i saw a documentary about the brain and there was a picture of a brain on the television and i said, “what’s that?!” and when an adult told me it was a brain i was inclined not to believe them.
anyone else remember childhood perceptions?
