HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-11-03, Page 16PAGE 16. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2011.
By Pastor Perry Chuipka
St. John’s and Trinity Anglican
Churches
Remembering for humans was
easier for us some 2,500 years ago
One day, young Sarah was
watching her mother make a roast
sirloin of beef. She cut off the ends,
wrapped it in string, seasoned it and
set it in the roasting dish.
Sarah politely asked her mom why
she cut off the ends of the roast.
Mum replied, “I can’t remember
why, but I know that it was the way
that my mother had done it.”
That night grandma came to
dinner and Sarah and her mother
asked why she had cut the end off of
the roast before cooking. After some
thought grandma replied, “I can’t
remember why, but I cook the meat
the way my mother had done it.”
Now great-grandma was quite old
and lived in a residential nursing
home, so Sarah, her mum and
grandma went to visit her and again
asked the very same question.
Great-grandma looked at them a
bit surprised and said, ‘So it would
fit in the roasting dish, of course.’
Have you ever done something
and forgotten why you do it that way
or have you ever tried to remember
something and it just wouldn’t come
to you?
I think if we are at all human,
forgetting things or trying to
remember something is a common
occurrence for us. The question I
wonder about was it always this
difficult for human beings to
remember something?
Apparently not!
My wife and I were watching
Allan Gregg’s In Conversation
program on TVO a few weeks ago.
He was interviewing Joshua Foer
who wrote the book, Moonwalking
with Einstein: The art and science of
remembering everything. Joshua told
Allan that 2,500 years ago people
knew the art of remembering
everything. He tells the story of a
Greek poet Synesius who had
attended a huge banquet in a palace
where he was reciting some of his
poetry for the large audience. After
the banquet he is one of the first to
leave the building. Within minutes,
after he departs from the building it
collapses and all the people inside
are crushed to death. The authorities
are trying to figure out who had died
in this terrible tragedy because the
people were unrecognizable in the
rubble. Synesius was able, in his
mind’s eye to remember where
everybody was sitting at the banquet.
From that experience, he
developed spacial memory which
one creates a palace in their mind. In
this palace you put images of what
you want to remember. When you
want to remember what’s in the
palace, you recall the image and it
brings back the memory. You can
also create several palaces for
different categories of things. You
could create a palace in your mind
just for remembering all your
extended families birthdays or a
palace for remembering all your
family member’s phone numbers.
Apparently this works because
Joshua entered some remembering
conferences and won them using this
method of remembering.
The other technique that he shared
was adding weird and different
things to something that you want to
remember. For example, say I want
to remember my wife's birthday on
Jan. 4. I think of my wife’s birthday
and then attach an image in my mind
with her blowing out a huge birthday
cake the size of a table with four
huge pillar-like white candles on the
cake. Joshua says the weirder the
imagery the better. He also tells a
funny story of a preacher who
remembered his sermons by heart by
adding some very sexy imagery to
them. It worked for him because he
became famous for his sermons. At
least he could remember them, I am
not sure if his congregation
remembered anything from them!
The other thing that Joshua talks
about in his book is that our long-
term memory is much better than our
short-term memory because we use
different parts of our brain to
remember long-term and short-term
memory. He also added that when
you are talking to older people, refer
them to their long-term memory and
the conversation will be much easier
for them.
Last week while I was away at my
hometown in Sudbury I tried this
method out when I visited an older
friend of mine who is 87. His wife
told me before I went into visit him
that he was not doing well at all.
She told me, “he can’t carry a
conversation and gets frustrated very
easily and then forgets his train of
thought.”
I went into his room and
immediately got him to use his long-
term memory by telling him a story
about an experience with him 15
years ago. I noticed his attentiveness
and then he went on to name other
people who were with us in that
experience.
We continued to talk about the
past and I had a wonderful
experience with him that afternoon.
His wife was amazed and wondered
what we spoke about. I told her
Gerry loves to talk about the past,
you should try it with him sometime.
It is obvious to me that his wife
often wants to talk to him about the
here and now: how he is feeling, is
he getting any better and so on.
These are all conversations which
he has to use short-term memory
which he cannot recall. So, it is no
wonder he gets frustrated and then
gives up.
Finally, we are not as good with
our memory today because we have
so many gadgets that do our memory
work for us. Our phones remember
all our important numbers, (and
depending on the phone they will do
more than that for us), our
calculators remembers our times
tables for us, our television
remembers, if you have PVR, all our
favourite shows, our smartphones ( I
don’t own one...thank God)
remember all our daily, weekly and
monthly events, our clock radios
remember when to wake us up.
Certainly we need some of these
devises to remember some things,
but I wonder if we are taking away
from exercising our brains with all
these gadgets.
I began by asking the question I
wonder if it was always difficult for
human beings to remember
something? I think you can see that
it wasn’t difficult for our forefathers
long ago to remember things. They
didn’t have all the gadgets and they
also had more time or made more
THE CATHOLIC PARISHES OF NORTH HURON AND NORTH PERTH
CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO ATTEND HOLY MASS.
OUR SUNDAY LITURGIES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Brussels:
St. Ambrose
Saturday
6:00 p.m.
17 Flora Street
Wingham:
Sacred Heart
Sunday
9:00 a.m.
220 Carling Terrace
Listowel:
St. Joseph
Sunday
11:00 a.m.
1025 Wallace Avenue N.
Youre Invited
to come worship
with us
Sunday, November 6
Brussels Public School
at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday School for children
4 to 11 years of age (mornings only)
Childcare provided for infants and toddlers
Coffee & cookies after the morning service
For additional details please contact Pastor Andrew Versteeg 519.887.8621
Steve Klumpenhower 519.887.8651 Rick Packer 519.527.0173
Chris McMichael 519.482.1644
You’re Invited To Join Us In Worship
Hwy. 4, Blyth 519-523-4743
www.blythcrc.ca
SUNDAYS
Morning Service 10:00 am
Evening Service 7:00 pm
in the Clinton CRC
BLYTH CHRISTIAN
REFORMED CHURCH
MELVILLE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
BRUSSELS
Rev. Elwin Garland
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6
Wheelchair accessible ~ Nursery care available
519-887-2664
10:00 am - Sunday Morning Worship
- Sunday School
getlivingwater.org
Pastor: Ernest Dow ~ 519-523-4848
Living Water
Christian Fellowship
November 6: Matt. 25:1-13
“Making the
Cut
in the
Oil Crisis”
10:30 a.m. ~ Worship & Sunday School
at Blyth Public School,
corner of King & Mill
Tuesdays 7:30 pm - Wingham Bible Study
1st & 3rd Wednesdays 7:30 pm - Women At The Well
Evangelical Missionary Church
Worship Service & Sunday School at 11 a.m.
CORNER OF DINSLEY & MILL STREETS
MINISTER
Rev. Gary Clark, BA, M. Div.
All Welcome
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Floyd Herman, BA, M. Ed.OFFICE: 519-523-4224
NOVEMBER 6
Remembering All Casualties of War
NOVEMBER 13
Following Your Heart Home
BRUSSELS - ETHEL PASTORAL CHARGE
UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA
Sandra Cable, Worship Leader
Church Office 519-887-6259 E-mail - bepc@wightman.ca
Sunday, November 6
135th Anniversary of Brussels United Church
Worship Service and Sunday School - 11:00 a.m.
at Brussels United Church
Special music by barbershop quartet “Midnight Express”
Note - No service at Ethel United Church on November 6
Celebrating our Christian Faith together in worship
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA
Welcomes you to come and worship with us
Trinity, Blyth
9:15 a.m.
Church Office: 519-357-4883
St. John's, Brussels
11:15 a.m.
519-887-6862
Sunday, November 6
Rev. Perry Chuipka
www.nabcom.ca/church
119 John’s Ave., Auburn
519-526-1131
www.huronchapel.org
Rev. Mark Royall, Sr. Pastor
9:25 a.m.
Sunday School for all ages
10:30 a.m.
Men’s
Breakfast
Saturday, November 5
at 7:30 am
at Stickers Restaurant
From the Minister’s StudyRemembering used to be easier: Chuipka
Continued on page 20