In a 2017 lecture, Mark Meynell addressed the connection between identity and memory:

BBC Radio 3, the U.K.'s primary classical music station, ran a fascinating series of articles on music and memory. Adam Zeman, a Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, wrote about amnesia and memory loss and their relationship to epilepsy. Zeman mentioned two patients, Peter and Marcus, who described their amnesia in very similar terms. One said: "My memory of my past is a blank space. I feel lost and hopeless. I'm trying to explore a void." Both described how disconcerting it is to look at photos. Even though they recognize themselves, they have no recollection of the moment. One said that it's like "reading a biography of a stranger." He's conscious of recent memories slipping away from him, like ships sailing out to sea in the fog, never to be seen again.

Two things stand out in Zeman's essay. First, without memory, it's hard to cling to an identity. So one of the patients said: "I don't have the moorings that other people draw on to know who they are." Second, it's hard to have hope when we don't know our past. As Zeman explained, "The inability to invoke the past greatly impedes their ability to imagine a future."

Possible Preaching Angles: In the Lord's Supper Jesus has invited us to be a community of remembrance. The Lord's Supper gives us our spiritual moorings. It gives us the "ability to imagine a future."