our past

answering a call

From a wonderful book I’m slowly making my way through, How to Inhabit Time, by philosopher James K.A. Smith:

Our past is not what we’ve left behind; it’s what we carry.

It’s like we’ve been handed a massive ring of jangling keys. Some of them unlock possible futures. Some of them have enchained our neighbors.we are thrown into the situation of trying to discern which is which. We are called to live forward, given our history, bearing both its possibilities and its entanglements.

Faithfulness is not loyalty to a past but answering a call to shalom given (and despite) our past.

(paragraphing mine)