Memories of Childhood – Sunday, June 21, 1981
The faculty of the mind is a marvelous thing. Not only does it receive, interpret and record information on a daily basis; but with the passage of time, this wonder sorts and prioritizes human experience. As it does, so it gives increased worth to the memories and recollections of events which seemed less valuable at an earlier age.
As we mature, we begin to understand the nature of human thought and wisdom. And as maturity looks backward through time, it learns that what may have appeared important to us when young, loses much of that importance as we get older; and conversely that which we may have taken for granted, gains in value as time passes.
“I made a great mistake in my youth,” say the words from a person’s diary. “I supposed that what was important to me then would remain important for a lifetime—winning at baseball, buying my first car, dating the high school cheerleader, and making the college fraternity were all matters that seemed of eternal consequence. But age has brought me home to the great lesson we all must learn. As memory takes me back to my childhood—the sports, the cars, the puppy-loves are all gone. And in their place, loom the sacred hours I spent with my own mother and father—hours of work, of play, of discipline; irreplaceable hours with parents who are no more.”1
The truth in those words provides us all with insight. For those of us who are parents, we learn that we do not always have to be understood by our children to be loved by them. And the love we give them, even though it must include a portion of discipline, will be more valued in time. We also come to understand that there is no more important time than that which we spend with our children. To provide children with happy, meaningful memories is a primary responsibility of parenthood.
For the young, this truth supplies a lesson for future reference—something perhaps not fully understood, but a precept for consideration. And for those who are now older, this principle confirms our own suspicions. For our recollections of childhood have brought us to the realization of what is of greatest value in life.
How familiar, now, are the hours of childhood to those who are old; and though gone now from reality and from present sight, image is seen clearly through memory’s eye.
1 From the diary of M.L. Robinson, unpublished 1980
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June 21, 1981
Broadcast Number 2,705