Time to Journal

I began my sabbatical journal a little over a week ago, on Palm Sunday.  I write for a few minutes each day describing meals, activities, encounters, thoughts, feelings and observations.  I've already noticed that in anticipation of the writing that I will do each evening I am a little more attentive to things and people I experience during the day.  

I last kept a daily journal in 2002.  In January and February of that year I was privileged to serve as a chaplain at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.  A few days before my departure for SLC I decided to keep a journal. During my five week stay I wrote in the journal every day for at least a half hour.  I described the food I ate and the people who joined me, worship activities at the chapel, conversations with other volunteers, the pins I purchased and exchanged with those attending the games, reflections on news articles and media coverage, the quick wave from President Bush as his motorcade made its way towards the Olympic Village to greet USA athletes, the arrival of the flag that once flew above the World Trade Center prior to the tragic events of September 11th, snow shoeing with friends in a valley prone to avalanche, walking the streets of Park City with my brother who worked security during the games.

When the games ended I decided to wait one year before again reading the journal entries.  And that's what I did.  I didn't read the journal again until April of 2003.  

I was amazed.  As I turned the pages and read the entries of a year earlier it seemed impossible that I had already forgotten some of the activities and conversations about which I had written.  And many of my journal entries didn't match my memory of them. I was amazed and a bit disturbed.

I was also enlightened.  Contrary to the claim, "I have a great memory for details," I do not, at least not over the long haul.   

So, amazed and enlightened and a bit disturbed, I began my sabbatical journal a little over a week ago.  I hope my commitment to write each day for the next three months will make me more attentive to things and people during the day. I also hope that fifteen months from now the journal will help me appreciate the things and people of my sabbatical as they once were rather than the way my distorted memory might want them to be. 

Your memory might be better than mine when it comes to important experiences in the months and years prior.  But, if not, why not join me in keeping a journal for the next three months.  Then we can talk about both our experiences as written and our remembrances of them. Somewhere in between the text and the talk we will discover what is real and what is true.