Live in Remembrance

 Link for this week's live-streamed service is here

Cadet Abigail and Jerusha place wreath on Sunday morning

On this Remembrance Day it behooves us to pause and honour those who have died in Canada's wars, and to consider how we honour their legacy. Although, they fought on foreign soil, they fought to uphold Canadian ideals of justice, fair play, human dignity and all the many privileges we enjoy in this land. We have become so accustomed to those "privileges" we often consider them "rights," but they came with a cost.

In 1964, Dick Van Dyke, of Mary Poppins fame, stood beside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and delivered a speech written by Rod Serling. In 2024 he repeated that speech in Los Angeles. In part, it reads:

Hatred is not the norm. Prejudice is not the norm. Suspicion, dislike, jealousy ...none of those are the transcendent facets of the human personality. . . . As long as there is one voice left to say 'welcome' to a stranger, one hand outstretched to say 'enter and share,' and one mind remaining to think a thought of warmth and friendship, then there is still hope for humanity... .  There will be moments of violence and expressions of hatred and an ugly echo of intolerance. But these are the clinging vestiges of a decayed past, not the harbingers of a better, cleaner future. 

In closing he quoted from Horace Mann: "be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." The actor added in his own words, "let us be ashamed to live without that victory."

Sitting in a local coffee shop last week, I was grieved by how many people, old and young, did not wear a poppy. As veterans of the World Wars pass away, their stories are left to family and historians to record. But we, who live in this most blessed and peaceful land, owe a debt of gratitude to those brave souls who left home and comfort to battle against hatred and evil. If we do not remember our history, we leave open an invitation for evil to rise again, and threaten all who live in freedom.

 I hope, that even without a poppy, that outward sign of remembrance and respect, Canadians of all stripes will strive to honour our fallen by living a life that wins "a victory for humanity."