For human beings remembering things that have happened is important. And remembering those that have died is important too. All of us have memories of people we knew and loved. And we bring back those people in our memories from time to time perhaps for a birthday, perhaps at Christmas.
It’s something in human nature then. The need to remember. And we see evidence of the human need to remember in war memorials. Though the war memorials as we think of them today are largely a 20th and 21st century idea.
For most of human history war memorials were erected to commemorate great victories. Remembering the dead was a secondary concern. Indeed in Napoleon's day the dead were shovelled into mass, unmarked graves. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris or Nelson's Column in London contain no names of those killed. By the end of the nineteenth century it was common for regiments in the British Army to erect monuments to their comrades who had died in small Imperial Wars and these memorials would list their names. By the early twentieth century some towns and cities in the United Kingdom raised the funds to commemorate the men from their communities who had fought and died in the Second Anglo-Boer War. However it was after the great losses of the First World War that commemoration took centre stage and most communities erected a war memorial listing those men and women who had gone to war and not returned.
As a book called “Leaving all that was dear” records:
“The memorials were erected by a grateful community to perpetuate the memory of ‘the fallen’ and the sacrifice made not only by them, but also by the families they left behind. In the past, the memory of those men lived on in the hearts and minds of their relatives and friends. We believe that the time has come for this to be recorded for the sake of posterity.”
The war memorials we see dotted around the country then were designed so that all people should have a memory of those who had died. That all people should remember. And of course at the time, the names on the memorials in towns and villages meant something. There would have been people alive who would have known some of the people named.
But I suggest that now, almost 100 years since the end of the First World War and almost 70 years since the end of the Second World War, the names on our memorials are starting to mean nothing to most of us. I heard in the week that this year for the first time there is no longer a veteran of the First World War alive at Remembrance Sunday. And many people have no connection with the names on the memorials. And many of us have been born since the Second World War. We do not know who they were.
There is a danger that these memorials become nothing more than some historic relics. Sadly I feel we see some evidence of this in the way some people in our society treat war memorials. We may recall stories of people urinating against war memorials and in recent months there have been a spate of war memorials being vandalised by thieves who take the metal plaques bearing the names of the fallen.
So does this matter? Apart from the criminality, does it matter that it seems as if we are starting to forget?
But even if people in general start to forget there are those who don’t.
I don’t know how many of you listen to the Jeremy Vine programme on Radio 2 each weekday lunch time. Normally it is a programme that looks at news items and invites listeners to comment. But over the last week it has run a very powerful feature called “The songs my son loved”.
During the feature Jeremy Vine has interviewed five mothers whose sons were all killed in action in Iraq or Afghanistan and the mothers recall the music their sons loved and talk about their memories of their sons.
In the first programme Mrs Helena Thatcher recalled her son Cyrus. She showed photos of her son and she made the point that each photo graph helped her to recall a different memory. Perhaps of a family holiday, perhaps of a party. And then she recalled the last days her son spent at home before going off to war. And given the title of the programme she shared some of the songs her son loved. And each song had a memory attached to it. One song was played by her son in the last day he was at home before he was posted to Afghanistan.
The programmes have featured 5 British mothers talking about their sons. Just 5 of the 563 mothers who are grieving the deaths of their sons or daughters serving with British forces or as Ministry of Defence personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I can guarantee that they have not forgotten. They will be proud of the way their children served their country and in the case of Afghanistan at least, sought to enforce United Nations policies. And I can guarantee that the thousands of mothers who grieve will not have forgotten either.
I don’t know what prompted the BBC to make those programmes. But the link between a grieving mother over the death of a child is powerful. And sends a strong message. And having listened to the programmes another grieving mother came to mind. Her son did not die in war but she saw him die
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
John 19:25
And as she stood watching him die she must have remembered much about his life. She must have remembered how she learned she would become a mother. She must have remembered the birth in Bethlehem and the arrival of the shepherds
19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2:19
Or as theGood News Translation (GNT) puts it
19 Mary remembered all these things and thought deeply about them.
She must have remembered the flight into Egypt. She must have remembered Jesus growing up in Nazareth along with his brothers. She must have remembered the time when he had disappeared while the family were returning to Bethlehem from Jerusalem. She must have remembered his ministry. The wedding at Cana where she had asked him to turn water into wine. Mary must have treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Just as all mothers do.
19 Mary remembered all these things and thought deeply about them.
But at the same time she must have thought her son’s death was pointless. She must have wondered why he died. She must have wondered why God allowed his son to die.
The feelings of a mother 2,000 years ago are no doubt the feelings of the mothers interviewed by Jeremy Vine this week and the countless other mothers whose sons and daughters have been killed in war.
The only reference we have to Mary after Jesus’ death is in Acts 1 where Luke says that she was present in the Upper Room appearance. After that we do not know what happened to her. There is some suggestion that she was held in high regard in the early church in Jerusalem. But assuming she was still part of the church what did she think I wonder? Did she start to make sense of Jesus’ death? Did she start to realise the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection?
19 Mary remembered all these things and thought deeply about them.
Two women who have been affected by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are Rose Gentle and Christina Schmidt. Rose Gentle’s 19 year old son Gordon was killed in Iraq in 2004 by a roadside bomb. Christina Schmid’s husband Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, was killed defusing a landmine in 2009.
In the midst of their deeply personal losses, both Rose Gentle and Christina Schmid have found the courage to speak out in the public sphere, albeit in starkly different ways. Rose Gentle became a fervent campaigner against the conflict in Iraq, lobbying politicians so that our troops could be brought home. Christina Schmid, by contrast, has chosen to voice her support for the military personnel in Afghanistan, asking the government for better equipment to get the job done and encouraging the British public to show their respect in more visible ways.
But what unites these two women is arguably stronger than what sets them apart: both are fighting to keep the legacy of their loved ones alive and that, perhaps, is the greatest tribute Gordon Gentle or Olaf Schmid could have hoped for.
They are typical of the many women who in recent times have grieved but who seem determined to ensure that people do not forget what is happening in the conflicts around the world.
It seems to me that we are called to remember. To remember those who have given their lives to uphold the values we hold dear. To remember those who are caught up in war. To remember those on the opposing side who are killed and injured. To remember the families of those killed.
To remember all these things and think deeply about them.
(C) David Gray 13th November 2011
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