LAST WORD ARTICLES...
Last Word -
Nostalgia
One of the many dangers to which older people (and some not so old) are exposed is nostalgia. My dictionary defines this as 'sentimental longing for past times'. The great exponent of this is, of course, Proust with his 'a la recherche du temps perdu'.
Another (rather different) danger is a proneness to repeating an anecdote to people who have heard it already. Is it kind to tell them about it or to suffer in silence? Bear with me. This note is in part about nostalgia, with apologies if you have heard it all before.
I picked up a book of photographs, just before starting to draft these few paragraphs. Being an arch procrastinator, I leafed through the pages which show old photographs of parts of Glasgow - and there was a picture of a Glasgow tram, passing the cinema where I was on the evening before a large part of Glasgow was heavily bombed. The cinema was evacuated when the warning sounded and we emerged into a moonlit night and a clear sky with the sound of gunfire beginning in the far distance.
This is not a description of an air raid. What was nostalgic were thoughts that flooded in of my contemporaries, some of whom were also in the cinema that same evening, including friends from school. Where, I wonder, are they now? I know where some of them went but it is many years since then and they could now be anywhere, in this country or elsewhere. They might still live not far away from where they were born.
What really prompted these rather rambling reflections was searching through the Gospels for accounts of Jesus journeying on foot with his disciples. Jesus must have known some of them for a good part of his life. Others, as we know, joined him on his journeying. We also know that, after the crucifixion and resurrection, some at least went away - a very long way in some instances. It seems doubtful if any of them were ever troubled with nostalgia. They must have had very little to be sentimental about.
We are asked to take no thought of the morrow. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Is it permissible to seek peace? What seems to be true is that there is no need to carry the lumber of past evils, whether we are near or far from where we started. Jesus tells us "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." That is a peace without nostalgia. It is here, and now.
Bob Mclean
Last Word Article Archive...
To view other articles click here