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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with novelist and poet Zahid Hussain

Good Morning,

Recently, I have started to forget things. I’m putting it down to a combination of age and stress. But I suspect these excuses mask the true reason. I think it’s deeper. I think we are all starting to lose our memories.

Not so long ago we memorised telephone numbers and thought nothing of it. Nowadays some don’t even know their own numbers – how can we expect them to know someone else’s? When was the last time you didn’t use your satnav?

But what does it mean when you give up wanting or needing to remember things and rely on something external like your smartphone, your iPad or devices that respond to speech?

They’ll do all the remembering for you, right?

Well, I think they may one day tell you what to remember and that probably won’t be what you wanted to remember. What a world we’re creating!

The art of memory was prized by the Ancient Greeks, and this remained the case for many civilisations throughout antiquity. In Muslim communities memorizing the 600 hundred pages of the Holy Quran is an everyday feat that broadens the ability to memorise almost anything. It doesn’t dull the mind of students, it sharpens it!

And it is in the rituals we repeat that we ground ourselves and sometimes find our true selves.

I want to keep our memory alive through stories and by repeating them. I want to keep hold of who we are and not become the husk, the empty shell of something that does not live.

Lord, you blessed us with this gift of life; let us never lose sight of what this means. Guide us to know, to remember and cherish that which is precious, now and every day.

Amen.

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