The Integration of Faith and Ray Bradbury

An excerpt from a novel by Ray Bradbury that I'm currently reading:

"Oh, thought Mrs. Bentley. And then, as though an ancient phonograph record had been set hissing under a steel needle, she remembered a conversation she had once had with Mr. Bentley - Mr. Bentley, so prim, a pink carnation in his whisk-broomed lapel, saying, "My dear, you never will understand time, will you? You're always trying to be the things you were, instead of the person you are tonight. Why do you save those ticket stubs and theatre programmes? They'll only hurt you later. Throw them away, my dear."
But Mrs. Bentley had stubbornly kept them.
"It won't work," Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. "No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've always been nine years old and will always be. When you're thirty, it seems you've always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn seventy, you are always  and for ever seventy. You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen."
It had been one of the few, but gentle, disputes of their quiet marriage. He had never approved of her bric-a-brackery. "Be what you are, bury what you are not," he had said. "Ticket stubs are trickery. Saving things is a magic trick, with mirrors."
If he were alive tonight, what would he say?
"You're saving cocoons." That's what he would say. "Corsets, in a way, you can never fit again. So why save them? You can't really prove you were ever young. Pictures? No, they lie. You're not the picture."
"Affidavits?"
"No, my dear, you're not the dates, or the ink, or the paper. You're not these trunks of junk and dust. You're only you, here, now - the present you."
Mrs. Bentley nodded at the memory, breathing easier. //Dandelion Wine 

When we walk through dry patches in our walk with God, it's easy to get hung-up on past encounters and experiences with him. It's not a bad thing; in fact, memories of past seasons can often encourage us to push through dry seasons. This lovely passage from Dandelion Wine reminds me however, that the past does not trump the present. We shouldn't allow the now inactive past to lead us to believe that God's activity in the present is somehow in some sort of divine funk. I've gotta say, being home here in Salt Lake hasn't been like previous summers where I was surrounded by Christians from all over the world and was being changed because of it. It's beautiful to look back on those times, but I don't want to be blinded to the fact that He is working right now. In the dry season, or whatever you want to call it.  These days, it's nice to let his reminders of how beloved I am wash over me. It doesn't matter where I am in my walk with him or whether I'm across the globe or back here at home - His love grounds me and roots me in truths that are too powerful to let go of. And for that, I am incredibly thankful.