"God
has given us a memory
that we might have roses in December,"
James Barrie once wrote.

Our memory
keeps alive the good
and true things
we experience in June.
That is,
in the beautiful times
of our lives.
It recalls
these cheering experiences
to give us strength
in the dank and difficult
Decembers
of our lives.
This is precisely why
the memory of God's people
carries forward
the easeful events
of earlier salvation history:
so that
the remembrance of them
may be a bulwark
of strength to us
in present troubled times.