Will you be thinking of someone you know who perhaps lost their lives as a result of conflict long since gone or perhaps closer in time? Perhaps you'll be thinking of those who returned with broken bodies, minds and spirits?
Will you be thinking of those you know of who have served in one of the three Services that make up our armed forces?
Will you be reflecting upon the innocent lives which, caught up in conflict, have been taken, damaged and broken?
Will there be a poppy on your lapel (and there is what colour is it)?
Will you be one of those who observes the silence or one of those who chooses not to?
So many questions - but all valid and all very important. Because today is not about glorifying war; being dead isn't glorious - but it does mean that the person gone is, to use the vernacular, 'in glory'.
Today, as with Sunday gone, is about remembering and giving thanks for the courage of those, at home and overseas, who have worked - and continue to work - for peace. It is not a time for politics or jingoism but a time to think about the sacrifice of many in pursuit of peace and the snatching away of life, freedom of thought and stability from others as wicked people continue to act wrongly throughout our world.
It is a time to remember and to make the words, 'Never again,' mean exactly that - EVERYWHERE!
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to gwalk humbly with your God?
Micah 6.6-8
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