Remembrance

This year as I was visiting Hertfordshire at the weekend I attended the Remembrance Sunday commemoration in St Albans, which was the first time I had been able to do so for a long time. In most recent years I have attended the Whitehaven ceremony, which my wife attended this year.

Both ceremonies were well attended, ran smoothly, and were very moving.

I was particularly impressed that the ceremony in St Albans included readings about peace and reconciliation from the Torah/Old testament read by the Rabbi of a local synagogue, from the New Testament by a Christian priest, and from the Holy Qu'ran read by the Imam of a local Mosque.

Here are a few words from each:

"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not take up sword against nations; they shall never again know war."

"So make peace and reconciliation between your two contending brothers ...

O Mankind: We created you ... and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other, not that you may despise each other."

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God."

Many people reading this will know some of those words well enough to know which come from which holy book, but if you didn't know them, I don't think you would be able to tell. Which rather makes an important point.

Here is a graphic from the BBC about the cost of war and the people we were remembering.


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