'Do you remember when...' - Weekly Reflection 9th November 2025

Remember, remember, the 5th of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Well, at one level I also see no reason that this event should be forgotten. However, I could give you several reasons why I think we should have long ago dropped the ‘celebration’ of oppressed Roman Catholics, terrorist that they may be, being brutally tortured and then executed in about the most barbaric way imaginable.

However, that is not what I want to invite us to reflect upon but rather on the whole concept of remembering which in some ways seems to mark out the month of November.

We have November 1st, All Hallows Day,  November 5^th and very significantly we have November 11^th and although perhaps not so well known we also have Road Peace Sunday on the 16^th November when we are invited to remember all those killed or injured on our roads. (About RoadPeace - RoadPeace)  

Remembering is part of what enables us to function as human beings and helps us to analyse or process information.  Once you being to reflect of the key role ‘remembering’ plays in our life it quickly becomes a huge topic and one well beyond the scope of a short weekly reflection. I only hope to start of your thinking and let you decide where it takes you or how deep you wish to go.

At one level we need to remember all sorts of things, from the mundane to the global level. For example, how to get to the shops, what we have gone there for, and then how to find our way home again. Although with an increase in online shopping that function is becoming less important. A little like satnavs, for the most part we have lost the skill of map reading and navigation and in some cases geographical locations.  As somebody said recently, as technology gets smarter we are becoming dumber!

And for those suffering from certain forms of dementia remembering brings a whole raft of issues into play and can make life very difficult for the person and family and friends.

And then consider what we do when we remember. How that makes us react and act in certain ways. We are currently watching a ‘remembering’ being played out between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. That remembering is hate filled and spilling out in violence and retribution.

Of course, our whole justice system is predicated upon remembering. What happened, who was involved, what was said or done.  And for the perpetrator of the any ‘crime’ – are you able to remember why you did this, what was your motive, what was the reason behind your actions or even inactions? For the victims of crime, what does ‘remembering’ do for them? That can be a very long fraught journey.

And today, Remembrance Sunday, just what are we remembering and perhaps the hardest question of all is, are we learning anything in our remembering?

With over hundred armed conflicts across the world currently, it would seem the answer is no.

And our Scriptures are replete with story after story, command after command, encouragement after encouragement to remember.

At the core of our Christian faith are these words from our Lord, ‘do this in remembrance of me.’

Here I find that if we consider the word re as a prefix it brings something very important to mind. We are invited to ‘re member’ someone – to bring them back into membership, back into memory, back into our thoughts.

However, immediately we follow this line of thought we see that this can be for both good or for ill, there are some people whom we don’t wish to remember. (But why is it those are the ones we seem to more readily remember, we seem to have a way of remembering more of the brickbats than the bouquets life has presented us with)

However, we cannot help but remember, we need to do that to be able to function and navigate our way through life. That being said, what we remember, and what we do with those memories is something we can cultivate and seek to attune more to the will and way of God. To purposefully focus on the bouquets and who offered them rather than the brickbats.

And remembering God’s faithfulness in the past can offer HOPE.  (Holding Onto Past Experience.)

Sadly, too often the way the ‘world’ handles remembering is not always the most healthy or helpful way, leading to bitterness and ongoing violence, seeking retribution.

Romans 12.1-2 helpfully reminds us 'not to let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.’

And then….

‘Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.’  Philippians 4.8

And as we remember the horrors of the two world wars that engulfed the world amongst the many stories of courage and self-sacrfice surely the story of Maximillian Kolbe stands out as a supreme expample of someone out of love giving their life for another in a selfless act of grace.  This is a truly noble story, excellent, praiseworthy and certainly worth continuing to think about and remember.

This is the story Maximillian's act of sacrfical love in Auswitch.

https://youtu.be/A8MbKF8YfiU?si=zbvpO_5GfIPA3dGv