The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
September 4, 2011
Vol. 14 no. 34
On the plane to London, a young Muslim man born in Toronto was heading off to Saudi Arabia to teach calculus in a prep school. Since this was the middle of Ramadan he set his alarm for sunset in Toronto and only then ate the airplane meal. The purpose of Ramadan’s fasting is to remember God, he told me, as well as the five daily prayers. The month of Ramadan is not an easy regimen and the five prayers intentionally calls you out of your routine to remember God.
Remembering is going out of fashion. History is an unpopular subject in schools, and many agencies, governmental and otherwise, pass over the study and celebration of past history because it’s frankly “past.” We insist upon being a people of the future.
It’s important to remember, if for nothing else than to realize that we’ve made mistakes before and we are probably about to make the same ones again! The future has no mistakes – yet - which is why we prefer it.
In the midst of the tenth plagues inflicted upon Pharaoh because he would not let Moses’ people go is a solemn call to remember it all every year in worship. The narrator kind of kills the drama detailing every symbolic action we should rehearse in order to remember how we were led out of slavery into freedom. Is it boring and tedious? Yes, but keep in mind that this is not a birthday party. It’s about a revolution against an enslaving dictatorship that succeeded only because God was behind it. Keep remembering, reciting and reimagining every year that you have been freed by God not to be a slave. If you do remember, how will you live?
Do you and I remember God that persistently? What would happen if we did?
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan