Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Ecclesiastes 7:10
At funerals, we usually say nice things. By general social convention, we have decided that it is wrong to “speak ill of the dead,” even if we feel poorly towards them. We selectively remember the good things the deceased said and did, and generally keep the bad to ourselves. Most of us even speak civilly to people we don’t like, and from the outside, it would appear that old animosities have been forgotten.
In a world dying from its sin, it is easy to think of the past too kindly, as if everything was “better,” and what was not good was easy to reckon with. It is also easy, I have found, to do the opposite: to focus so much on one terrible part of the past that we see it as the only thing which has shaped what is appalling in the present, a horror we cannot escape.
We cannot have a healthy sense of the present or a large vision of the future unless we are honest about the past. We must draw wisdom from what we have seen and experienced if we hope to experience joy now or have peace tomorrow.
Lord of all time, place our hearts at rest, that we may not romanticize or vilify the past, but see where Your grace has been present, as it is now and will be always. In the name of Christ Jesus, Amen.
