The time is ripe … not all the time, surely, but from time to time … to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember — the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.
—From “A Room Called Remember” by Frederick Buechner* [1926-2022]
A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for June 28, 2026.
How is your remember room arranged? Do you have a literal room where you display your keepsakes or an album of photographs on a coffee table or in a drawer? Do you have framed photos hanging or displayed in your home that you stop to look at (and maybe talk to)? Do you have a box of letters from days long past? Perhaps you have a rack of vinyl records or music CDs that can spark an hour of reverie just looking at the covers.
I’m guessing that, for most of us, the remember room is within us and all around us. I have a collection of photos and letters and too many other keepsakes that hold my affections and memories and of course my now adult children will never want them because they will not hold memories for them and that’s how life works.
What kind of calendar do you keep? One on a hook on the kitchen wall, a zippered Day-Timer, a digital one on your phone with pop-up alerts, or sticky notes on the fridge? Besides appointments and tasks to accomplish, what other reminders does your calendar contain?
My calendar highlights the must-do things, the should-do things, and the dates of some of the important moments of my life. Some of the dates do not need to be documented as they are burned deeply into my heart with a mix of sweetness, sadness, smiles, and a few different varieties of tears.
Maybe part of your remember room is portable, opening memories that are moving with you on a walk through the park, or sitting on a museum bench in front of a favorite painting,, driving on familiar streets to see Christmas decorations, watching fireworks, eating a favorite summer dessert, or…
When I open the door to my inner room of memories I sit with them as if in a familiar and comforting attic. I sift through the virtual folders and boxes that hold remnants of the most meaningful people and times of my life now past. Also on each of those days I seek and feel God’s presence while I winnow through the highs and the lows ~ the great, the good, the bad, and the very bad ~ of all that has been. I caress the remembrances of the all-too-brief moments with those now gone who I have loved and who have loved me. I look with joy at the reminders of birthdays, weddings, graduations, family gatherings, past and yet to come.
Of course there are those spontaneous memories that appear because of a word or a phrase, seeing someone on the street or on tv who reminds me of someone I knew or know, or for no apparent reason at all. Life is filled with what was, what is, and what is yet to be. We are each moving forward day by day and occasionally looking back over our shoulders at who and what we miss as well as, now and then, remembering what we are glad is gone.
Remembering is an important part of my personal history that helps me know more about who I am and have been and aspire to be, what mistakes to avoid, what lessons I’ve learned and, importantly what in my past not to dwell on.
Sometimes I’m in that remembering mode for a moment, other times off and on all day. Sometimes I know a date is coming weeks ahead and it lingers within me until it is here and then gone again. What about you?
Whether I’m spending a long time or a few moments in remembering a time, a place, an event, or a person, I’ve learned to leave it with a small prayer in various spontaneous forms of:
Dear Lord, Give me Your peace when I go from this room until it is time again to remember. Strengthen my resolve to walk more fully into today, into all that is now, and all that is yet to be. amen.
*Carl Frederick Buechner was an American theologian, Presbyterian pastor, and author of more than 30 books in several genres such as fiction, autobiography, and sermons, and is well-known among readers of Christian meditation. He received the O. Henry Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award among many other honors.
Photo of keepsake photographs and a painting at the home of Sir Richard Ranulph FitzHerbert in Derbyshire, England; photo by Danny Nelson Schweers, copyright 2018.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Every week, Christina Brennan Lee writes the Prayers of the People we use in our worship services on Sundays. She also leads weekday prayer services and serves on the SsAM Vestry. Click here to see her People’s Prayers website.
