Remembrance

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

Some say we should never forget the bad things that happen. They inform us of what humanity is actually capable of, giving us a true sense of our power and a large look at our morality. Some say the past should be a testimony, victims of atrocity should be given a voice. That voice should echo through time.

I am not so sure.

While remembrance serves the above functions, I truly wonder to what end? I know that it has not been particularly useful or helpful for me to retain traumatic memories of combat. Images of killing and death that seem eternally there in technocolor, are easily tripped and like a trip-flare the explode in graphic sensory stereo. Like I really need this in a crowd at Disney World.

We bow our heads and pray. We recite blessings, or mantras, and become synchronous with all history. We sit on meditation cushions or pews in a church or Temple and commune with the Infinite, remembering what is possible, actually what is, just now in this moment. And do what?

Remembrance Days are sort of like Departments of War. Self-fulfilling agencies of tears. I would rather we spend our money and brains on waging peace, finding non-violent alternatives to killing so no other generations need Remembrance Days.

We spend so much effort on such yesterday, so little on today. Its as if our lives are only meaningful when we wrap them in the past. Yet that is like being stuck in the mud. Some of us these days seem to enjoy their old mud, but not me. I want new mud, or more precisely, no mud at all.

Be well.