Genealogies (in Scripture and elsewhere)

When I was a child, my grandparents would try to interest me in the family tree. They would tell me the names of generations who had died before I was born. And at the time I had no interest, much to my regret now. Because time has changed my perspective on that, and more strongly as I have recently sorted through old family photos trying to identify who was who, and how to view old 35mm slides, and how to figure who was the photographer of various scenes. 

As I child I used to see that kind of thing as belonging to an irrelevant past, what I now think of as lost treasure. My grandparents weren't telling me of irrelevancies, they were telling me about their own parents and grandparents and before. I began to feel it more strongly when my father died: that he had become one of the names on a list, memories that lived only in certain people. And it grew on me that all those names from before were my people, my family that I had never met. They are a missing piece of my puzzle. And I am a vital link in their future, as they were for the generations before them. 

The cultures that value genealogy -- such as the Hebrews -- may resonate more strongly than I do with seeing the endless lists of people. And as the years go by, the lists of names even in Scripture become more meaningful to me. The lives, the eras, the stories of how they managed, are a treasure. 

When we forget or devalue the past, we lose part of ourselves. But it can be found again.