One of the most memorable sections in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' prize-winning novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude concerns a strange disease that invaded the old village of Macondo from somewhere in the surrounding swamp. It is a lethal disease of insomnia that attacks the whole town. The initial effect is the inability of people to sleep, although the villagers do not feel any bodily fatigue at all. A more critical effect than that slowly manifests itself: loss of memory. Gradually the victims realize they can no longer remember or recall the past. Soon they find that they cannot remember the name or the meaning of the simplest things used everyday.

You've heard of the fellow who said two things happen to you when you grow old — "one is the loss of memory, and I can't remember the other."

Christians are to be reminders, living reminders of Christ's presence in the world. The world's lethal disease is amnesia, the loss of memory.