Today we mark Remembrance Day in Canada, Veterans Day in the United States. We remember those who sacrificed on our behalf. We observe silence and think back to the terrible cost of war.
This morning I watched the ceremony from Ottawa, our nation’s capital. The coverage included students at a school in Ontario holding a photo of a soldier who had died in combat and telling the story of that soldier. One 15-year-old girl spoke of a soldier who died at 21 years of age. She related his story, his connection with family, some of the things of his life that were familiar to hers.
As I listened to the account I thought about how in some ways it is easier to remember than it used to be. Easier to recall at least. You may have seen those social media applications that simulate what you will look like as you age. You may have seen applications that take old photos and reverse the aging of people in them. As we are more and more awash in images from years ago, as we can see clear video from decades past, it is possible to feel closer to people who have long since died than we have ever felt before.
I have been re-reading Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being. The book includes a reflection on how many more dead there are than how many living:
“The dead outnumber the living. Credible estimates of the number of people who have ever lived on earth run from 70 billion to over 100 billion. By these moderate figures, the dead outnumber us (this was written in the 1990’s) by about 14 to 1. The dead will always outnumber the living.”
Perhaps, now more than ever it is possible to imagine the lives of people who have died before us. We have more to work with, in terms of historical record and photos and family recordings. This changes the way we remember and might make it more likely that young people can see an older person and picture them as young themselves.
In faith, I sometimes consider that God knows me now (and you, too) at the same time in which God knows me as a child and knows me in my old age, if I am blessed to be able to grow old.
As we see a WWII veteran making remarks at a Remembrance Day service, one of the gifts of remembering that we can take up is to consider that person, not only now, but then as well.
The poem “For the Fallen” is read at many Remembrance Day services. It takes up this posture of holding the now and the then in considering those who died years ago in service.
“They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.”
For the Fallen
BY LAURENCE BINYON
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Source: The London Times (1914)
Thanks Todd…just now trying to learn to trust God …be aware of His Presence in my present…rather than Future Trip
Just read this poem from Brian Bilston today:
Three Postcards
The first one came from Weston-super-Mare
with the newly-built Grand Pier in view,
a bright, gleaming promise of the future,
and the sea, an impossible blue.
Unfamiliar, that neat hand,
the black fountain pen.
But she knew he was the one, even then.
The next, she received eighteen months on:
Tidworth station, as viewed from Church Hill.
The foreground, a row of thatched cottages; the barracks beyond;
fields, silent and still.
She propped it against a vase on their mantelpiece,
a wedding present from her niece.
The last, a busy scene from Boulogne,
a censor-passed, heaven-sent souvenir.
'Crossing rough - but I made it! 'he'd written.
When it's all over; we should come here!'
She clutched it tight. The baby moved once more.
The telegram had come two days before.