Memories Make Us Who We Are: But Are Some Memories Worth Having?

"How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."
- Alexander Pope

I watched a strange and bizarre but strangely stimulating movie the other night. It was called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I'm not sure how I felt about it. The premise - and I'm not ruining anything here - is that there is a company that will erase your memories of people, especially relationships. Especially painful relationships.

It got me thinking a lot.

If you could erase the memory of something or someone, would you do it? Would your life be better? Would you be more healed? More whole? What if you had a really ugly relationship that still kind of hurts? Would you be better off if you had no memory of that?

There are certainly things I've seen and experiences I've had that I wish I wouldn't remember. I tend to remember them at exactly the wrong moment and exactly the wrong time - like when I'm trying to pray. Part of me wishes I've never ingested those things, seen those things, done those things.

Some of you might know exactly what I'm talking about.

I guess, in a way, the kind of process the movie was adovcating is a shortcut. The healthy way would be to do the hard work with the help of God. This means that God could eventually take a horrible thing, and transform it into something that you can use later in life, maybe even to help others. The Apostle Paul writes, "Death where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?" If God can take away the sting of death with his power and love, then surely my bad relationship is a fair candidate.

It'd just be easier to simply erase the memory.

But easier isn't necessarily better.

One more thought. There's a scene in particular that affected me. Whenever a "patient" goes to get their memory erased, the company makes a cassette tape of the patient explaining their thoughts about why they're erasing the memory. At the end of the movie, Jim Carrey listens to Kate Winslet's thoughts about him. And she says some really hurtful stuff.

I started thinking about my thoughts. If they were transcribed, and the people I know and think about read them, would they bring pain?

What kind of thoughts am I thinking about my best friends? My wife? Are they fair? Am I feasting on destructive thoughts? Is the way that I think about others similiar to the way that Jesus Himself thinks about them?

And if not, why?