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We have a number of Remembrance Day threads, some going back to 2001 or 2004, but none deal with this issue so:
The newspapers and the radio and even the TV, which is usually there to satisfy our need for instant gratification, are talking all this week about Remembrance. Over and over again they speak of “lives lost.”
The lives were not “lost” they were sacrificed. First, they were lived, so briefly and oh so brightly, and then they were offered up as a holocaust - a burnt offering (ὁλόκαυστος) which was used for only the most important of all sacrifices - but not as a sacrifice to gods but rather as an offering to friends and to sons and lovers.
We take our words of remembrance from two sources:
• Lawrence Binyon’s For The Fallen wherein we find the words that are, now, our Act of Remembrance:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.*
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
• Ecclesiasticus – especially
All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. Ecclesiasticus 44:7
Their name liveth for evermore Ecclesiasticus 44:14
There is another bit of Ecclesiasticus we might want to consider:
And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them [but] their glory shall not be blotted out. Ecclesiasticus 44:9 7 13
As we approach 11 November we should think about a few things.
1. This is not Veterans’ Day. Veterans started this day of Remembrance because, I think they looked at themselves and realized that they were not the “greatest generation.” The greatest were those who had made the supreme sacrifice. The veterans understood that their dead comrades could not be a “lost generation” – they had to be remembered, they had to be “honoured in their generations.”
Veterans don’t need remembrance – they provide, for family and friends and neighbours, a constant affirmation of their service to mankind and their country and to their community and their family and, above all, to their comrades in arms.
2. We do not need big ceremonies. The focus of Remembrance day is remembrance not ceremony. The cenotaphs are there as every-day reminders, but on 11 Nov you do not need to go. It is sufficient to stop – just for seconds if that’s all time you have – and to “remember” and recite just the shortest of the words of remembrance – “their name liveth for evermore.”
3. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa is not just to remember unknowns – it represents all those who have or will die in battle but, especially, those with no known grave.
4. Remembrance Day isn’t about war, it is about selfless sacrifice. No one should care what the national commentariat, which now includes Rick Hillier, thinks about war or the politics of war. The only really important person at the big, national ceremony is the Silver Cross Mother – the GG and PM and CDS are just bit players in supporting roles. She lays a wreath for us all. Croesus, King of Lydia, is reputed to have said: ” In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons. “ The mothers and fathers of those who have sacrificed all deserve a special place in our heart sand minds.
5. In Flanders Fields is not about Remembrance. It is a challenge to carry the torch to victory. It is, probably, appropriate it recite it to Prime Minister Harper because the “dead” of 1915 are telling us all that they will not rest if we do not do our duty. If you want Remembrance poetry try:
Wilfred Owen
ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
September - October, 1917
(Passing bells are those tolled at funerals – to announce those who have passed. Orisons are funeral prayers.)
Or
Siegfried Sassoon
Base Details
IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.
Or if you are of a romantic mind,
Rupert Brook
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
But you do not anything to remember except a human understanding of sacrifice and, perhaps, a bit of gratitude for it.
--------------------
* We, mostly use the word condemn which means (Oxford) ”sentence to a punishment, especially death” or ”force (someone) to endure something unpleasant”. Binyon wrote contemn which means treat or regard with disdain. Contemn, in our day, is largely a literary device. The two words are similar but not exact matches and Binyon’s choice is good. Death is not a punishment, is just the end of our lives as we understand them. What Binyon wanted to say was that the lives that were sacrificed would never be treated or regarded with disdain – they would always be the “best” lives ever lived.
The newspapers and the radio and even the TV, which is usually there to satisfy our need for instant gratification, are talking all this week about Remembrance. Over and over again they speak of “lives lost.”
The lives were not “lost” they were sacrificed. First, they were lived, so briefly and oh so brightly, and then they were offered up as a holocaust - a burnt offering (ὁλόκαυστος) which was used for only the most important of all sacrifices - but not as a sacrifice to gods but rather as an offering to friends and to sons and lovers.
We take our words of remembrance from two sources:
• Lawrence Binyon’s For The Fallen wherein we find the words that are, now, our Act of Remembrance:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.*
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
• Ecclesiasticus – especially
All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. Ecclesiasticus 44:7
Their name liveth for evermore Ecclesiasticus 44:14
There is another bit of Ecclesiasticus we might want to consider:
And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them [but] their glory shall not be blotted out. Ecclesiasticus 44:9 7 13
As we approach 11 November we should think about a few things.
1. This is not Veterans’ Day. Veterans started this day of Remembrance because, I think they looked at themselves and realized that they were not the “greatest generation.” The greatest were those who had made the supreme sacrifice. The veterans understood that their dead comrades could not be a “lost generation” – they had to be remembered, they had to be “honoured in their generations.”
Veterans don’t need remembrance – they provide, for family and friends and neighbours, a constant affirmation of their service to mankind and their country and to their community and their family and, above all, to their comrades in arms.
2. We do not need big ceremonies. The focus of Remembrance day is remembrance not ceremony. The cenotaphs are there as every-day reminders, but on 11 Nov you do not need to go. It is sufficient to stop – just for seconds if that’s all time you have – and to “remember” and recite just the shortest of the words of remembrance – “their name liveth for evermore.”
3. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa is not just to remember unknowns – it represents all those who have or will die in battle but, especially, those with no known grave.
4. Remembrance Day isn’t about war, it is about selfless sacrifice. No one should care what the national commentariat, which now includes Rick Hillier, thinks about war or the politics of war. The only really important person at the big, national ceremony is the Silver Cross Mother – the GG and PM and CDS are just bit players in supporting roles. She lays a wreath for us all. Croesus, King of Lydia, is reputed to have said: ” In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons. “ The mothers and fathers of those who have sacrificed all deserve a special place in our heart sand minds.
5. In Flanders Fields is not about Remembrance. It is a challenge to carry the torch to victory. It is, probably, appropriate it recite it to Prime Minister Harper because the “dead” of 1915 are telling us all that they will not rest if we do not do our duty. If you want Remembrance poetry try:
Wilfred Owen
ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
September - October, 1917
(Passing bells are those tolled at funerals – to announce those who have passed. Orisons are funeral prayers.)
Or
Siegfried Sassoon
Base Details
IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.
Or if you are of a romantic mind,
Rupert Brook
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
But you do not anything to remember except a human understanding of sacrifice and, perhaps, a bit of gratitude for it.
--------------------
* We, mostly use the word condemn which means (Oxford) ”sentence to a punishment, especially death” or ”force (someone) to endure something unpleasant”. Binyon wrote contemn which means treat or regard with disdain. Contemn, in our day, is largely a literary device. The two words are similar but not exact matches and Binyon’s choice is good. Death is not a punishment, is just the end of our lives as we understand them. What Binyon wanted to say was that the lives that were sacrificed would never be treated or regarded with disdain – they would always be the “best” lives ever lived.
