Remember

November 11^th 2014

Remembrance Day Today. I love history and am continually amazed at the willingness and the depth of sacrifice people committed for something they believe in. ‘Freedom of-‘ or ‘Freedom to-‘ are such beautiful and thought provoking reasons. Whatever the dash stands for.

For me it wasn’t just men and women who chose to fight and give what the world has deemed the ultimate sacrifice who should be remembered. But those men and women who lived through the experience and are so brutally scared inwardly and outwardly that ‘life’ as it could have been is no more. Those men and women who endured their family, friends and potential love’s sacrifice, was, in many ways, more heroic and inspiring. To love and loose. The sacrifices of men and women who lived in war torn places, desolate abandoned places, occupied places and endured that ‘life’ which war had demanded. These great and beautiful and startling sacrifices of ‘life’ in all its forms are reverencing- and worthy of remembering today.

These sacrifices give me ‘Freedom of-‘ and ‘Freedom to-‘ and my of/to can be so different than the initial dash intended. For me that is the most humbling part. A man who gave his life, a woman who gave up hers, a child who gave up theirs; I choose how to honour and reverence those memories, those sacrifices. I choose my Freedoms AND how to use them. That is a humbling and solemn task.

Often people do not care about history and they claim it is boring. But for me the ‘so what’ of history comes in a slightly different form; So what will I do with this task, for this sacrifice because

To me from failing hands was thrown,

The torch, Be mind to hold it high

I will never break faith with those who die.

I have had the privilege to walk in Flanders Field. 

And I will never forget. 

How will you exercise your freedoms?

Will they be worthy of the sacrifices made for them? 

Will we always be tolerant of others? 

Will we always be conscious of the ripple effect of our actions? 

Will our Freedoms of encroach on others Freedoms to or from?

Lest we Forget.