PAUSE FOR REFLECTION
by Ken Rolheiser
It's All Coming Back To Me Now

A flippant remark I often make upon recalling something is: like the skunk said when the wind turned, now it all comes back to me.

What would you give to get back the feelings of childhood Christmas, of the innocence of youth? To remember the “moments of gold” and the “flashes of light”. We can “barely recall” those innocent pleasures of childhood.

Is this sounding vaguely familiar? Is it starting to come back? It’s “hard to resist” like one of the greatest love songs by Celine Dion.

Jim Steinman said he based the lyrics to “It’s All Coming Back To Me” on Wuthering Heights. He was attempting, he said, “to write the most passionate love song”.

Our lives sometimes reflect a break up with God and a separation from that heavenly innocence and love we shared with God in infancy. Kissed by God before conception, we forever long for that love again and are restless until we rest in God’s love. Human love can only try to come close to that.

Scientists tell us human life begins in a bright flash of light as a sperm meets an egg. Researchers have shown this event for the first time, after capturing the astonishing fireworks on film. An explosion of tiny sparks erupts from the egg at the exact moment of conception.

Now that is so special we long to get back to it. In 1 Kings 18:20-39 Elijah tries to bring God’s people back to the true worship. They had gone astray. Elijah recalls the names and memories that should bring them back. Like Steinman’s song: 
“If I kiss you like this
And if you whisper like that
It was lost long ago
But it's all coming back to me”;
Elijah calls on those well loved names and prophets: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then he calls on their God Yahweh to bring down fire and burn the offerings which had been soaked in water and surrounded by a trench of water. And it works.

It all comes back to them, just like it should all come back to us. One song can do it. I picture my Father on the pump organ, figuring out the keys to “Silent Night”, his tenor voice leading us into Bethlehem and heavenly peace.

When we recall the love of Christmas and strum those childhood chords we should cry out like Elijah’s people: The Lord is God!

And can we leave behind that material world which was “so cold / That my body froze in bed”, and the sun “was so cruel / That all the tears turned to dust”?

When Christ touches us and holds us, it all comes back to us. I know, I am pirating Steinman’s lyrics for my own purpose here, but Christ can “forgive me all this” if I can
“forgive you [God] all that
We forgive and forget
And it's all coming back to me”.

Yes, we sometimes blame God for how we are made and for our weaknesses. But God will forgive us all that and embrace us again. Then this truly will become the greatest love story of all time.

Christ embraced our human flesh and felt, like us, warmth and love. It’s “hard to believe”, but if we return to God’s embrace and God kisses us back, and He will, all our troubles will be “gone with the wind”.

(569 words)