No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. – Ecclesiastes 1:11
“Wheaties, Wheaties, Wheaties, that’s all we get, bloody Wheaties.”
I don’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I remember Red Fox complaining about Wheaties 52 years ago. Tom, his real name, was from London, had flaming red hair, and a temper to match.
This is a fun memory from summer camp in 1974, my first time as a camp counselor. I had no prior experience or qualifications, but I was eager to prove myself and am grateful for the experience and the memories.
Recently, a young friend asked for a reference to help acquire his first summer camp counselor position, and ever since, he has stoked my own camp memories like a well-placed poke to a campfire.
What is it about first times that makes them so special? We remember first camp, first car, first apartment, first child, first real taste of responsibility. We are not just remembering the event. We are remembering the moment we felt the world get bigger.
I have no idea why those memories stuck. I can forget why I walked into the kitchen, but I can still hear Red Fox protesting the cereal situation like he had been personally betrayed by the Kellogg’s Corporation.
Memory is funny that way.
It does not preserve life evenly. It saves fragments. A smell. A song. A nickname. A cabin, Seminole. A campfire. A first taste of responsibility. A moment when we were young, and the world still felt wide enough to surprise us.
We remember those moments because something in us was waking up.
In 1974, my camp name was East Wind. At the time, it was part of the camp tradition and ceremony. I’m sure I liked the drama of it all. Who wouldn’t want a name that sounded like it came with a canoe, a campfire, and at least one horsefly the size of Manhattan?I even made a wooden name tag in arts and crafts with East Wind burned into it, strung with twine so I could wear it around my neck like official camp royalty.
But all these years later, I wonder if there was something more going on.
The East Wind was connected to the rising sun. A new day. A beginning. A first light.
And maybe that is what our best memories do. They do not make us permanent, but they awaken us to the reality that we were made for something eternal.
Ecclesiastes tells us we will not be remembered forever. Scripture tells us to remember anyway.
That is not a contradiction. That is an invitation.
We do not remember because memories can hold us forever. We remember because they help us recognize the One who can.
The camp songs fade. The cabins change. The cereal improves. Hopefully.
But the East Wind of God still blows.
Sometimes it comes through Scripture. Sometimes through worship. Sometimes through a conversation. Sometimes through a memory we did not know we still needed.
And sometimes, by the grace of God, it comes through a red-haired counselor from London complaining about bloody Wheaties.
Run the play: Replay the memories, and listen for the voice of the One who is calling you home.
Finding Our Place in the Story
What memory from your life still feels strangely alive, and how might God be using it to remind you that you were made for more than what fades?
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