I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
-John 10:14-15

A few years ago, my husband and I went to go see the film Memento. Less than a week later, we went back to see it again, wanting to catch the details we'd missed the first time around. The story is told backwards. It took a little while to catch on, but once I caught on, it worked. We witnessed one snippet of time, and then another -- each from an earlier point in time than the last. Sound weird? You bet it was. But the strangeness of watching a story unfold from end to beginning was certainly matched by the strangeness of the story itself.

The narrator of the film has lost his ability to form short-term memories, and he's trying to figure out what's happened to him (and, incidentally, his wife). He learns to leave himself clues, so he'll be able to get through the day without forgetting everything he learns. He carries a Polaroid, snapping pictures of people he meets, places he goes. Eventually, we learn where he picked up his mementos, and we learn what happened. It's a good film.

Looking back, what intrigues me is not so much the movie itself as the feeling I had as I watched it. Rarely have I felt so disoriented when watching a movie. Frankly, it was downright spooky. I couldn't help but feel a bit of terror.

The terror I felt wasn't so much due to scary scenes as to the questions the film can't help but raise. Imagine not remembering what you did six hours ago! Imagine your life being a mystery to you, lost in the recesses of a mind that can't remember. I found it downright eerie to imagine a life so fragmented, so strange. The narrator was, in no small way, a stranger to himself, and so he was constantly getting reacquainted with his life.

On one level, of course, you could say that, while the movie is fun to watch, it has very little connection with what we experience in day-to-day life. And on one level, you'd be right. Most of us can retain our experiences for more than a couple of hours.

But on another level, I suspect that many of us go through our daily life trying to figure out who we are, and what we're all about. Our problem isn't so much that we can't remember things as that we struggle to put it all into perspective. And then there are those moments when we really do seem like strangers to ourselves. We make a decision that even we have a hard time understanding, or we say something unkind and we don't know why we said it. Think, for a moment, about all the things that you don't know about yourself. Why are you the way you are? Some of that you know, some of it will remain a mystery. It's a little humbling to think about.

But in the midst of all the uncertainty and strangeness in life, we hear Jesus' words: "I know my own." As deeply as Jesus understands the One who sent him, he understands you, and me, and that guy in your class that drives you crazy and your incomprehensible parents. I find it a great comfort to ponder this: all the things we don't understand about ourselves, or about other people, are understood by Jesus. He gets it. There are days that will be strange and difficult and lonely, but you are not a stranger to Christ. It is my hope that you can find a sense of peace and grace in that.