The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
November 11, 2007
Vol. 10 no. 41

Everything But...
           Remembering is a major part of any religious faith - a signature aspect of being a human being. There is nothing we do without some remembering. Whenever you learn something, it is simply an act of remembering someone else’s discovery and insight. For sure, we are creative and inventive, yet think about it, usually we begin by adapting or rejecting the old traditional way or idea.
           Remembering, unfortunately, is not always the same. Some memories are sharper, fuller than others, and often we only remember those things we want to remember and not that accurately. Then again, we remember a lot of things by rote, by brute memorization. Do those memories count, are they alive? Or just lifeless words we recite?
           The struggle on Remembrance Day is to avoid rote-ness. We go through the motions to remember the sacrifices and contributions of others, but these are only alive and worth remembering when they give new life to our lives and society. Lest we forget, in the Christian Church this always means that war is hell, and our calling is to render war unrepeatable. We are terribly human, however, so only by remembering the terrible do we have a chance at not repeating it.
           I prefer to “remember forward.” “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards” says the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. When the past is revived in the future we create something new. Call it imagination, but it always starts with dissatisfaction over what has imperfectly been. We are terribly human with terrible memories, but we can remember a peaceful future of genuine justice.