(Forced) Forgetfulness was a theme in this week’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.  Here’s the trailer for the episode, which gives some hint of the price of forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness (forced or otherwise) is also a key thread in The Silver Chair, the Narnia book that I just finished rereading.  Memory and forgetfulness show up in two main ways in the story.  First, upon meeting Aslan, Jill Pole is instructed to commit four “signs” to memory: tell Eustace to greet an old friend, journey to a ruined city of ancient giants, do what some stone writing tells them, and they will know they have found the lost prince because he will speak in Aslan’s name.  Much of the story is what happens when Jill often doesn’t remember the signs (but also the good things that happen when she does).  She is, of course, distracted by the adventure around her, just as she is also distracted by the desire for comfort when the adventure gets difficult,

The other kind of forgetfulness shows up in the climactic confrontation near the end of the book, when Jill and friends confront the Witch-Queen.  She sets some magical green powder ablaze and then plays a mandolin that entrances its listeners.  And as she speaks to them, she leads them to question the most basic things about who they are and what they know of the world, including the reality of Narnia itself.  Lewis writes:

Puddlegum was still fighting hard. “I don’t know rightly what you all mean by a world,” he said, talking like a man who hasn’t enough air.  “But you can play that fiddle till your fingers drop off, and still you won’t make me forget Narnia; and the whole of Overworked too.  We’ll never see it again, I shouldn’t wonder.  You may have blotted it out and turned it dark like this, for all I know.  Nothing more likely.  But I know I was there once.  I’ve seen the sky full of stars.  I’ve seen the sun coming up out of the sea and sinking behind the mountains at night.  And I’ve seen him up in the midday sky when I couldn’t look at him for brightness.”

It reminds me a good bit of this scene from The Return of the King:

For Frodo, of course, the forgetfulness comes from the weight of his burden and his proximity to evil’s source.

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What is the “solution” to the forgetfulness (forced or not)?  In “Among the Lotus Eaters,” Captain Pike has one object that serves as a touchstone for remembering what he as forgotten (in an alien culture that encourages the forgetfulness).  For Frodo, it’s Sam’s help and the destruction of the Ring that can remedy his forgetfulness.  It is Puddlegum’s bravery with foot and fire that sets his companions free in The Silver Chair.

For the Christian, it can be a number of things, but definitely it is the remembering that takes place with the Lord’s Supper.  In 1 Corinthians 11 (ESV), Paul writes:

²³ For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

It often feels that today’s world is designed to have us forget the most important things for the sake of the more immediate things.  It is good to remember that the there is more to the world around us that what we might hold in our short-term memory.  And it’s nice when pop culture and literature can remind us of the deeper truth, too.