Sometimes I'll watch a movie that deeply moves me--reminding me of days gone by, of my childhood. And my heart yearns for those simple, joyful schooldays. But it is in vain that we try to recapture the past. It is gone.

Or is it? It seems to me that there is a faint thread that ties us to the past: God. Whatever longings we have for the days of our youth, perhaps these are best fulfilled in God--the One who was there in our past, and in the now, and in our future. So perhaps to God are best directed these restless energies of longing awakened by stories.

And when we are old, the same God can connect us to our now and our future.