History in the Making
Dr. King noted, “We are made by history.”
Who we are is a product of everyone and everything that has come before. The genetic material in our cells is the unimaginably complex consummation of a trillion trillion connections. Contemporary society, with all its problems and progress, is the result of over four-billion years of life finding its way in the world together. Our forebears struggled and wondered and learned and grew and passed their wisdom down to us as philosophy, science, technology, religion, and art. And then, each of us received that and applied it as best we could to the twists and turns of all our individual choices and challenges, through our own history of lived experience, bringing us where we are today.
It’s mind-boggling. On one hand, in retrospect, it seems inevitable — of course it led to this, it couldn’t have gone any other way — we’ve arrived, here we are. From another angle, though, the whole thing seems so crazily unlikely. I mean, if any of the infinite variables had gone differently, how unrecognizable might it all be now, if it existed at all?
I’ve been gathering photos, remembering departed loved ones, as I prepare an altar for Dia de los Muertos this weekend. I’m thinking about how I’ve been shaped by these relationships. How very grateful I am for these lives and how they have made me, and the ways this making continues. Every time I bake, Mom is baking through me, and when I sing, it’s with Dad’s voice. Along with countless others making bread, making songs, making history, making me.
And then — at the same time that we are continuously made by history — we’re making it, ourselves.
Right now, we are all participating in the creation of what comes next. Directly and indirectly, consciously and unconsciously. With our commitments, choices, and questions, together we birth the future, all the possibilities into which we are living. We make our future selves and we set the stage for future generations. It’s a tremendous responsibility and an awesome power.
I dig the tangled reciprocity. Being made by history which we make, which makes us, which we make, back and forth and onward, forever.
One of the things I like about it is that we can engage with this process at any point, in any direction.
While we can’t undo the past, we do have great latitude in how we choose to hold it, what we say about it, all that we make it mean. We’re the ones telling our story. So, to an important degree, we are making our history retroactively, as we describe, understand, and share it. And then, how we “make” history looking back informs how empowered we feel to make history going forward.
Likewise, as we declare a future into being, this can cast fresh light on where we’ve been. Even the most difficult history is redeemable if we recognize it as the very stuff that brought us to this creative present, the threshold of everything to come.
My practice this week is to look back with gratitude and forward with hope. And to remember that each direction creates the other. Consciously making history, both forward and back, with an honest, open, generous heart and mind.
“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday, and I love today.”
~ William Allen White
At service this Sunday, November 3, we will have an altar, a community ofrenda, to honor our departed loved ones. With special musical guests, Las Flores del Valle, Leila Flores-Dueñas and Carol Vigil. I can’t wait to be with you and with all those who have come before. XO, Drew
©2024 Drew Groves
