When Memory Becomes a Mirror

Today I spent hours writing Chapter 4 of Don’t Call Me Strong: The Inadvertent Illusion of Strength, going back down memory lane and reflecting on how I have grown and changed. Since making the decision not to connect myself with the doctrines of Christianity in the way I once did, so much of my spiritual life has become an examination of what I was taught, what I experienced, what I inherited, and what still feels true for me now. It has been a blessing to remember.

One memory especially stayed with me.

When I was little, I was visiting my father in Texarkana, Arkansas. My grandfather was a pastor, and their home sat only steps away from the church. One Saturday evening, my father needed to go inside to look for something, and I went with him. I had never experienced the church empty before. Every other time I had been there, there was a service.

The lights were dim, and everything had already been prepared for communion. The table in front of the pulpit was covered in white. The silver serving trays were stacked. White gloves were nearby. I remember speaking to my father in a whisper.

He asked me why.

In my mind, the answer was obvious: because it’s communion.

You didn’t play with communion. It was sacred. Serious. Something adults did after they were baptized and mature enough to understand it.

Then my father asked if I had ever taken communion. I told him no because I had never been baptized. He simply said, “You want communion right now?”

I could hardly believe I was allowed.

He gave me the little wafer and juice, and I remember waiting for something wonderful, something miraculous.

It was disgusting.

The wafer tasted terrible, and there was barely enough juice to swallow.

I laugh remembering it now, but there is something profound in that story for me. I had attached so much meaning, mystery, fear, and expectation to that ceremony before I had ever personally experienced it. I had been programmed to approach it one way, just as the adults before me had likely been programmed too. Yet in one ordinary Saturday-evening moment, my father introduced me to another perspective.

Maybe that is part of what reflection gives us: the opportunity to return to the experiences that shaped us and look again.

Not necessarily to dishonor what was sacred then, but to ask what is sacred now.

That question feels especially alive in this season. I have been recreating and cleansing my sacred space, exploring purification, writing, moving my body, reconnecting with people I love, and thinking deeply about visibility, anger, transformation, and what it means to come home to myself.

I am noticing how much of my life right now involves clearing—not throwing everything away, but looking closely enough to decide what belongs.

And perhaps that is why I feel so grateful.

I am grateful for the memories. Grateful for the traditions. Grateful for the questions. Grateful for the perspectives that expanded mine. Grateful that I can revisit who I was without having to become her again.

At this time in my life, I am immensely grateful for this awareness, this clarity, this ease.

Alchemy Reflection: What belief, tradition, or memory once felt unquestionable to you—and what might you understand differently if you revisited it through the eyes of who you are now?

Mantra: I honor what shaped me, examine what I inherited, and give myself permission to choose what remains sacred.