IF YOU WERE LIVING YOUR LIFE on a 24/7 reality show, what kind of record of your life would be digitally broadcast and stored? Kind of an unsettling thought isn't it—every moment of a person's life recorded and saved. The huge desire for celebrity today has exposed some entertaining segments of reality shows. But mostly the record shows many moments not worth capturing or showing to the world. Those moments of little or no value in real time, highlight the merits of summarizing the important and enduring aspects of a person's life with the benefit of reflection and perspective. And a key question is what should we expunge and what should we keep?
Take the founder of this magazine, for example. Mary Baker Eddy wrote and published an autobiography called Retrospection and Introspection. Her approach to writing it gives clues about what she felt was worth capturing for all time. This is no tell-all book. Many details are left out as inconsequential and mere historical incidents that don't make the cut in providing a right assessment of her life. This document has been called a spiritual autobiography. It sure makes sense for a woman whose life-focus was spiritual living, writing, and healing.
In the autobiography, Mrs. Eddy stated, "The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 22). Far from trying to manipulate facts or dishonestly enhance her public image, this approach was vital to actually revealing the reality of her life. For reality is not the stuff of human personality and material things (empty footnotes of history), it is what comes of God. It's the reality worth saving, which truly defines one's life.
