Unforgotten: The Gospel According to the Gummi Bears & Hearts Fun-Pack

It was a bag of chewy, red candy…
Packaged with a purpose: to beckon another to “be mine.”
The fun-sized package, in full holiday color, even down to the block of space for proclaiming love’s “to” and the commitment of “from.”
All the romantic colors of a day created for the observance of romance.
The colors of romance…
With the exception of one ostentatiously plain…
And overtly direct…
Order.
This order sat in stark contrast just under the blank space for “to” and “from.”
All caps.
Arial font.
Four words, designed to confer explicit instructions.
And the instructions jumped off the whimsical packaging, into my distracted brain.
Four words:
“USE A PERMANENT MARKER”
No punctuation. No room for error. No mistaking the command.
“USE A PERMANENT MARKER”

As if the designer of the packaging were demanding of its giver: “If you’re going to give these gummies to someone, and declare some type of affection for them…you had better MEAN IT”
Like it was saying…
Well—it was saying exactly what it was saying…
“Permanent.”
Permanent.

(I sighed here.)

Transitory.
I think that was the word.
I saw it once in an outline for a talk I was to give and was, of course, forced to look for its meaning.
(I like to know what words really mean, not just how they are used.)
Transitory.
In other words…
“Doesn’t last.”
Transitory means something that doesn’t last.
Something that doesn’t stand the test of time…
Something that is here today and—
Well—
Transitory…
180 degrees south of the word permanent…
Fading…
Passing…
Temporary.

And that’s how we view so much of life…
I’ve heard people say, “Everything came to PASS.”
And sadly…
Most believe it.
Most people believe that everything came to pass…
And nothing came to stay.
People, quite often, view most of life as being transitory.
Like trying to grasp hold of an uncontained gallon of water, is how most people view most of life…
How most people view relationships…
How many view love.
Not that people don’t try to hold onto love and relationships…
By in large, most people try desperately, vehemently to hang on to love and to make love work…but most, probably all, see love as something that can simply…
Simply be…
Transitory.

As though the request to “be mine” was made…

As though their name written in the blank under “to—“
And the requestor’s name was subsequently written under “from—“
The bears and hearts were delivered by hand and received…
The fanciful package was placed in the safe carrier of a book bag and carried home…
But in the process of the transfer…
While rubbing across the surface of spiral-bound notebook covers and pencil boxes…
The commitment of the romantic invitation…
Was erased from the plastic packaging…
As though the request was issued, but the instruction not heeded.
That in the haste of pre-Valentine’s shopping and school preparation, the four-word requirement wasn’t met and the temporal ink of a Crayola marker was used instead…
And the fading of the request meant the fading of the commitment made.

I think maybe, people see love; that people see dedication—as a thing that time and circumstances can simply fade away…
Parents divorce…and nurturing becomes weekend trips with half-siblings.
Someone says they see you just as a friend, and an entire social network sees your “status” change to “single.”
Three letters, BFF, turn to letters written in a yearbook, but not lived out through the passing of years.
The person who opens doors and welcomes you in…closes a door and leaves you jobless…
Your biggest fan breathes a final, painful breath…and now memories and photos are the closest thing you’ll ever have to the hug that always welcomed…
Because of the circumstances of life on terra firma…
We often see love…
We often see commitment…
We often see “remembering I’m alive,” as something that is…
At its best…
Transitory.

But the requirement written on the package of Gummi Bears & Hearts Valentine’s candy still stares starkly.
The four, simple words reminding of a commitment that was made…
A love that is anything but transitory…
A love and a devotion that is, indeed, written by someone, who truly understands…
Someone who truly fulfills the command made in this gospel, to:
“USE A PERMANENT MARKER.”
A person who requests you to be his…
And preemptively pays every price of requirement.

But, I mean, you know that story.
You’ve heard it…
You may have PRAYED it…
You may have “confessed” it…
But sometimes…
Sometimes…
Do you BUY it?

“USE A PERMANENT MARKER”

JESUS GOT A TATTOO.
(Oh snap…did I just type that?)

A pricking under the skin…
An intermetacarpal piercing…
And an indelible mark remains.
Indisputable.
Undeniable.
Unforgettable.

Jesus got a tattoo.
Yes, you did read that correctly.
Jesus.
Known as Master…
Creator…
King of kings…
The Son of Man…
The Son of God…
The only begotten…
The divider of time…
The Alpha…
The Omega…
The personification of all that is Divine…
Of all that is holy…
Him.
He climbed shamefully under-dressed…
To the seediest of establishments…
Spread out his hand…
And with a careful searching for the prescribed physical locality…
With full and fulfilled knowledge of Levitical Law…
Jesus…
Got a tattoo.
He had himself…
The temple of the Holy Spirit…
MARKED.
The spotless lamb, took upon his on flesh…
The most beautiful of blemishes.
He fulfilled the ancient folklore written centuries before.

And for eternity after…
He gazes upon that tattoo…
His commitment of ultimate love.
As his fingers trace the deep, dark outline of a name forever in its place…
And he…
REMEMBERS.
Even when the bearer of that name thinks they have been forgotten…
Even when the subject of that name feels unremembered.
Jesus stares loving, through tear-filled eyes at the name of his beloved…
The name written with such permanency,
That not even Heaven…
Or hell…
Or all the pain between the two…
Can ever remove.
More permanent than any Sharpie marker ink chemist could ever fathom.
And Jesus…
REMEMBERS.
He remembers a dedication…
A nurturing, abiding love…
More deep and more real and more undeniable than the love known by any mother for the baby for which they travailed…
And second by second…
Without fail…
He recommits to, and commemorates, the love for the subject of his proudly displayed tattoo…
His eternal adhering to the Gospel of the Gummi Bear wrapper is eternally fulfilled…
Each moment, as Jesus remembers the name eternally inscribed on the palm of his hand.
And the subject of this skin art…

The name forever written in this brutally beautiful tattoo?
Oh, that name?
Well that name in that tattoo…
Is yours.

“Can a mother forget the infant at her breast, walk away from the baby she bore? But even if mothers forget, I'd never forget you - never.
“Look, I've written your names on the backs of my hands.”
--Isaiah 49:15 & 16