Legacy, an Alternate View

 

            I feel a twinge of self-condemnation whenever I hear a certain popular Christian song on my preferred radio station. The singers and songwriters don’t want to leave a legacy. They don’t care if anyone remembers them. They insist that Jesus is the only name to remember.

            Even as I want to sing along with this catchy song, I know I would be lying. I do want to leave a legacy. I do want to be remembered.

            I’ve raised four sons. With God’s help, I created them in my body. I birthed them, fed them, sang to them, taught them, fought them, and loved them. I want them to remember all the Deep Space Nine and Voyager we watched together. I want them to remember me, as I remember my mom who’s been gone for many years.

            I’ve taught perhaps several hundred students in my twenty plus years in two small Christian schools. (Public school teachers will be able to say several thousand.) I want them to remember me, even if it’s just as their crazy Bible teacher. Or crazy English teacher. Or crazy history teacher. Or the teacher who joined the casts of their musical plays. 

The Oldest Nun in the Sound of Music

         Or the teacher who taught them to knit. Or the teacher who fed them strange food on Jewish holidays. I want them to remember our mission trips to Jamaica, performing with puppets on our sweaty hands under the noonday sun. I want them to remember me as I remember Mr. O’Kielty, my French teacher who bravely drove four senior girls to NYC to watch Le Genou de Claire, and made us promise not to read the English subtitles.

2013 in Jamaica

            I want readers to remember the pieces I’ve written. I want someone to tear a devotion I’ve written out of the current copy of the Secret Place and tuck it into a Bible. I want someone to reread Surviving Meemaw and Surviving Jamaica as I reread Dessen, Rowling, Tolkien, and Tyers.

                      I want friends to remember the beach vacations we took together, the bikes we rode on the boardwalk, and the secrets we shared far from home. I want other friends to remember the writing conference classes we attended, the songs we sang in chapel, and laughing so raucously at our silly writing collaborations late at night that we were put in an isolated area of the dorm the following year. 

.            If Jesus is the only name to remember, why are there so many names in the Bible? The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each contain a formal list of Jesus’s twelve apostles. Luke also included the names of several generous women who financially supported the men. At the end of most of his epistles, Paul mentions several people by name, sometimes just saying hi, other times thanking them for some kindness. In Romans chapter sixteen he manages to name twenty-seven people worth remembering.

            What about Hebrews chapter eleven, known by some as the Hall of Faith? The author commends sixteen people for their courageous faith and then apologizes that he doesn’t have time or space to tell us about more—yet he goes on to list the sufferings and heroic acts of those he hasn’t time to name.

            My conclusion? The song makes valuable points about the focus of our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. However, I am convinced it’s also valid to want to be remembered by people we have loved and in whose lives we have invested. The Author included hundreds of names in Holy Scripture so we can learn from them and honor their legacies.