The Notebook

In the movie The Notebook, the male character reads to his senile wife every day and tries to remind her of their love story - the way he pursued her like a fool, her unfaithfulness through adversity, his patient restoration of her dream house in her absence, and their eventual life together. He reads to her every day, hoping for a sweet reunion in those rare, lucid moments when the cloud of sickness is lifted and she remembers her identity and their history. Those moments come and fade quickly, giving way to a violent and unnatural separation. Each day he returns, reading to her and looking for that spark in her eye that says she remembers.

We're all senile - walking around, a shell of our true selves, forgetting where we came from and whose we are. Perhaps evangelism is less like starting a fire than simply blowing on the coals that remain in the morning. We were born with the fire and it beats in our blood. Sometimes it just needs someone to come by and wake it up. Sometimes we just need a little help to remember.