Remembrance Day

Many thanks to all those who came along and braved the cold at our Remembrance Day service this morning. Thank you to Rev. Saju Muthalaly, who helped lead, and for those who helped with our readings and prayers. 

An extra special thank you to the five students who read some of the prayers in their own language  ...  Manuela in Italian, Jeff in Sinhala, Jose in Spanish, Basel in Arabic and Rania in Somali.  Thanks, it meant a lot to me personally.

War brings the very best and worst in humanity.

One hundred and one years has passed to this very day and this very hour—11th hour, 11th day, 11th month 1918 when the Allies met the Germans, in France, and agreed to cease fighting on the Western Front.

By the time the guns fell silent at 11 o clock in the morning, the war had claimed 22 million lives.

22 million lives lost.

So today we remember.

Remember Ypres, Gallipoli, the Somme, Mons and Verdun. Remember the Western Desert, El Alamein, the Normandy beaches.  Remember Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima and the Burma Road.  Remember Korea, the Falkland Islands, Northern Ireland, Syria, Nigeria, the Balkans, East Timor, Somalia, Afghanistan, Khargil and the Gulf.

Remember the 130 lives lost as bombs were dropped on the Drill Hall Library on the night of September 3rd 1917.

War brings the very best and worst in humanity.

Remember the love that was lost, the wisdom wasted, the minds that are still pained by memories. Remember the families bereft by recent wars and conflict.  Remember this day the children who will die while nation fights nation.

Remember the One who asks us to remember them.

The very best in humanity is the virtue of sacrifice.

And today we recall the sacrifice of those precious lives because “for our tomorrow they gave their today!”

Why do we remember?

We remember to make sense of the past and also, I suggest to us this morning, is to remind ourselves of who we are.

We remember to make sense of our identity - individually and collectively.