Remembrance Day

I wasn’t able to attend the Civic Remembrance Service at St Giles Cathedral because my wife is still not anything like fully fit and so I was on childcare. It meant however that I was able to go to the Remembrance service at my local church for the first time in several years

I was reminded by the faces I saw there that I know only attend on this Sunday every year of just how important it is to have a real and meaningful ritual of remembering every year in each community. I was also reminded that this is a remembering of real people. Its not about armies or militarism or victory or who is wearing a poppy. Its about people, real, flesh and blood people, some of whom died in places they or their families never knew, others who returned and carried the burden of knowing their friends had been left behind. Its also about those who waited (and in some cases are still waiting) back home, in hope and in fear for news that would either lift or sink their hearts.