LEST WE FORGET

As I type the date, September 11, at the top of my blog draft this morning I almost expect it to morph into some googlish twin tower rememblem. Such is the power of cultural memory and media. For each of us, certain dates invoke images: November 11th (poppies and cenotaphs) and the 22^nd (a black motorcade and a flag-draped casket), July 1^st or 4^th (fireworks and flags), October 31st (jack-o’-lanterns and boisterous children) and September 11^th (two great office towers smoking and collapsing). These are the kinds of things that make us a people, with joys and sorrows we share. They are tokens of cultural exchange, our common bonds, our corporate identity. “Where were you when you heard that Kennedy had been shot?” – It’s interesting that this question almost always refers to John, not Bobby. – And “Where were you when you heard about 9/11?”. The numbers are a coded incantation that conjures up a shared experience of shock, of rage, of sorrow. And the images are more than our life video. They shape us, make us who we are. They draw us into mourning and even into war.

And so, as this date has approached, we have been inundated with news stories and documentaries, reminding us of what we all remember. And many of us will pause today with our cultural and political leaders. We will ponder, or at least appear to ponder. And then we will go on our way, renewed for the coming decade in our commitment to remember to remember.

But regardless what we do the memory will fade, as all memories fade. With each year a year's worth of new babies with be added; people who were nowhere at all when it happened, and will have no idea where they were, or what thy were doing, when they first heard about 9/11. And a year's worth of others will be subtracted; folks who were there and remember it all.

And I believe this is the real lesson of 9/11. We are mortal, each of us and all of us. Every person and people, every nation and empire, every monument and memory is passing away. It’s good to remember for as long as we remember: the Battle of Hastings and the Plains of Abraham, the fall of the Bastille and the Berlin Wall, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But all of these memories will fade in time, and our descendants will move on as did our ancestors.

It’s pride that makes us imagine that we will be different somehow. But, in the end there is only one who is eternal, only one whose memory never fades. At the apex of the British Empire Rudyard Kipling said it well. And at the apex of the American Empire we might do well to ponder his words anew – lest we forget.

Recessional (For Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897)
God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard—
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!