Germany doesn't mark Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, although it does mark a National Day of Mourning later in November for all those affected or lost through war and conflict, generally.
I find I'm slightly torn. From my Canadian and English cultures I was raised to view the 11th of November as an incredible, important date of hope, celebration and sadness. As a day to honour honour, integrity, courage in the face of chaos, of perseverance and sacrifice for the "other". Honouring people who chose, and continue to choose, to risk death and destruction so that other's could be safe. But it's also a day to remember the heartache and senselessness of war, of strife. To mourn and to question, why did so many have to die? What was the point? Was it inevitable or was it simply through a series of small, separate, falsely understood or reacted to situations and circumstances?
My heart breaks on Remembrance Day when I remember the weight of death which came before it, and which has continued since. The heartache, the fear, the confusion, the destruction and despair that entire generations experienced and never fully recovered from.
And my heart aches when I think that this day which marks, for many of us, a day of relief, of recognition of loss but ultimately a celebration of hope and freedom, marks a day of sorrow, defeat, hurt and anger, historically, for many German people.
I don't want to mark this day as a "thumbed nose" at "the Germans". They bled, they died, they were just as confused and deprived (possibly more so!) as "We" were! They lost, too, entire generations of men (and women) and were left with a legacy of loss, pain, grief, anger and confusion which no one knew how to process or deal with healthily but which instead got hidden or ignored, allowing those same emotions to take root and eventually create the emotional, mental and spiritual landscape for similar dynamics to re-build, barely a generation later.
I don't "blame" the Germans for the World Wars, but my heart breaks that circumstances and thinking reached a point where it all seemed justified and "right", for both parties.
And today, I look back and I look around me now and my heart aches again in fear and sorrow, because I can see it all building again.
Fear, which comes from a feeling of insecurity creates resentment and anger. Anger at a sense of possible inferiority and vulnerability, of feeling out of control or fearful that circumstances or happenings will happen without reference to us personally, the Individual. That fear and resentment then creates defensiveness, greater resentment, more anger, and bitterness which then builds a desire to protect what's "Ours" from the seeming threat, "Them".
Protectionism then creates isolation, sectarianism, ideological walls and "Teams" and opposing positions which easily become rigidly held opinions and beliefs, which at the conclusion creates the very fanaticism so many fear to begin with...
And each of these stages or emotional responses bring their own trauma and destruction to relationships, communities and individuals.
And yet it is also a "natural" cycle. These are a somewhat "natural" response to the whole Darwinistic Theory of Evolution, of the Survival of the Fittest.
What it doesn't take into account is the possibility, or opportunity, to choose otherwise. That fear and darkness and anger and hate are all, actually, just fall-out/outcomes of turning our backs towards a loving, creating God and trying to do it all on our own, and that we actually have a choice. We can continue in our own cycles, which will continue to recycle these emotional and physical world dynamics, or we can choose to trade our fear for hope, our insecurity for belonging, our anger for compassion, our protective instincts for generosity and kindness...we can trade each of these things through Jesus Christ. He stands at the Cross where he died to take all the hate, the hurt, the anger, the darkness of the world so that if we allow it, if we would choose to receive it, he has hope, joy, peace, kindness and freedom from the negativity which so often contains and controls us. He can give and create these life-bringing things in exchange for the death-dealing "norms" we so often have.
And it's in that place, where we choose not to fear, not to protect, that we discover that the "Other", that all of "Them", are just as broken, confused and scared as we are! And maybe, as we each and all dare to choose the hope and life offered us, we can give that away and receive it back from those we feared before, and together, finally, begin to find another Way. A Way of Life, of healing, of hope, of good things done in partnership with one another and for one another...
Maybe it's a pipe-dream. Maybe it's naive and idealistic, who knows? But I believe that it is possible and practicable, when we dare to lay our defences down and choose another Way.
"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" - John 14:6
Lest We Forget
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