I was driving today, listening to Bruce Springsteen share about his own songwriting process. He spoke of his goals in writing and performing, the fact that he never set out in his work to tell people anything. Instead, he claims to have a goal of reminding people. Reminding them of what they know to be true of themselves. Reminding them of what it means to be human.
I spend a good deal of time working with organizations - specifically schools and nonprofits. In that setting, it is common to enter organizations in the midst of their own struggles. I often walk into situations where conflict is happening in real-time. And what I find in those situations is a people struggling to remember. Struggling to remember who they are and why they are there.
Let me give you an example.
One of the first questions I ask of teachers is why they chose to become teachers. What I hear is incredible:
I wanted to see students lives impacted.
I wanted to make a difference like my teacher heroes did.
I wanted to see students rescued and know that adults care.
When I hear these answers, I always joke that I’ve never had a teacher respond to this question by saying, “Well I got into teaching so I could burnout.” Or, “I became a teacher so I could be pissed off at all the bureaucratic nonsense that happens.”
No one ever says that.
And amidst the laughter, I simply say, “I’m here to remind you of who you are.”
We all need reminders. We all need remembrance. Leaders, it is often your job to remind your people of the mission, remind them of your culture, remind them of their identity. It is all too possible to be so future-focused that we forget the power of the past.
And, by the way, we see this in Scripture. The Old Testament alone is full of nearly 200 occurrences where the word “Remember” shows up. We see God remembering His covenant with His people. We see people pleading for God to remember them. And, we frequently see God telling his people to remember a specific day, a specific moment of time where their Deliverer intervened and rescued them. “Don’t forget!” God likes to say.
But it’s fascinating to me not just that the people of God are often called to remember - invited to reminders. It’s fascinating to me how God reminds them. He helps them remember by calling them to build altars. To setup stones in the wilderness so that when they pass those stones, every time they walk through that same wilderness, they will be reminded of the presence of God in the midst of their roaming.
Bruce Springsteen may be onto something. He may be tapping into a divine work of ministry, a powerful work of leadership. That we would learn to remind the people around us and remind ourselves of the truth of who we are, the memory of where we’ve come from, and the potential of our future built from the magic of our past. May we all remember. May we take photos (and actually print them!) of the wilderness where we roam so that we may always remember. Be reminded my friends, that even today you are not forgotten nor should you forget.