In his book, The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the late Oliver Sacks has a chapter titled “A Matter of Identity.” He speaks of a “Mr. Thompson” who suffers from an extreme case of Korsakoff’s syndrome, in which he is unable to retain a memory of identity. He must continually invent new selves. In these endless exercises, Sacks describes him as “throwing bridges of meaning over abysses of meaninglessness, the chaos that yawns continually beneath him.” (106)
[Oliver Sacks, 1933-2015]
Sacks recalls meeting Mr. Thompson, who mistook him—rapidly and repeatedly—for various people he had known, including a dear old friend. “We have, each of us,” Sacks comments, “a life-story, an inner narrative—whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs and lives, a ‘narrative,’ and that narrative is us, our identities.” (105)
When we ask someone, “So what’s your story?” that is essentially our question. We aren’t expecting a series of bullet points. A mathematical equation isn’t called for. No one wants an abstract painting. We’re looking for personal reflection.
Who are you? Woe be the one who has no story!
Mr. Thompson’s rapid changes in presentation were, in a sense, even amusing. Some might say, “he’s a riot.” Still, it could just as easily be said that he was a tragic poet.
I recall (we will hear that word again) an acquaintance from church many years ago. He appeared one evening at a youth group meeting, with his friends saying he had amnesia. I thought it was a prank, so I asked him if he really didn’t know who I was. I could tell from his blank expression he genuinely had no idea. That was the last time I ever saw him. I honestly don’t know what became of him.
Now, this isn’t the same malady that had befallen Mr. Thompson, who seemed (almost?) unaware of his forgetfulness. His quick replacement of senses of being, manufactured and superficial as they were, still provided an illusion of self.
I remember wondering idly about the fellow from church, “Did he remember that he was a Christian?”
That might not be as ridiculous a question as it seems. There are theological and philosophical factors at work here. We are offered scriptural notions of identity.
The Lord says to the youthful Jeremiah, who doubts his ability to carry out his prophetic mission, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). Our true identity is grounded not in what we know, but in who knows us.
Regarding memory, Jesus instructs his disciples, “This is my body that is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me… This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24-25). “Remembrance” is the Greek word ἀνάμνησις (anamnēsis). This is not simply a recalling, but a re-calling—not simply a remembering, but a re-membering. That is, bringing the past into the present. It is a characteristic of sincere worship, of faithful liturgy.
It’s important to recall (there is that word!) the church has a mission to remember one another into being. When someone forgets who they are, the community can hold that identity in trust. That’s what haunted me about the fellow I knew at church.
As a side note, though these folks themselves have no memory loss, it is the church’s job to remember: the sick, the lonely, the prisoner, the tortured (see Matthew 25 and Hebrews 11:3). Make sure they are not out of sight, out of mind.
—I was thinking this morning of how pleasant a day this is. Then it came to mind how horrific a day this is for so many of my fellow humans. Too often they are forgotten, unseen. How different it is to know—
You are remembered.
You are seen.
Sacks ends his chapter on Mr. Thompson with an observation of his unceasing struggle to create new stories. It seems only on those occasions when he visits the garden at the group home that he finds a sort of peace. The plants in the garden, with “their quiet, non-human self-sufficiency and completeness allow him a rare quietness and self-sufficiency of his own, by offering…a deep wordless communion with Nature itself, and with this the restored sense of being in the world, being real.” (110)
Being in the world. Being real.
Being real is what he lacks, with the way his life is “reduced to a surface, brilliant, shimmering, iridescent, ever-changing, but for all that surface, a mass of illusions, a delirium, without depth.” (107)
Those descriptions could easily be applied to idols, with their counterfeit reality. Mouths, eyes, ears, noses, hands, feet… The parts are present, but they fall short on the promise. They lack the power that is attributed to them. The scriptures offer a grim prognosis: “Those who make [idols] will become like them, / Everyone who trusts in them” (Psalm 115:8, 135:18).
We can subject ourselves to our own version of Korsakoff’s. We can glide along the surface of a soap bubble with its glistening, prismatic veneer.
Our economic system presents a pantheon of impotent gods to whom we make our deepest vows, to which we give ourselves: body, mind, and soul.
But we are not left to drift on that shimmering surface. We are called to a deeper truth—one rooted not in illusion, but in communion. We are remembered into being by the One who formed us, and by the community shaped in Christ’s memory. The church, in its liturgy and love, re-members us, re-calls us, tells us again the story we may have forgotten.
To be seen, to be known, to be real—that is our calling. That is our gift.
And in the garden of God, there is peace,
and there is memory,
and there is identity that cannot be lost.
Beautiful reminder of how much we need one another together as the church.