Holocaust--A Day to Remember

photo reserved b USACE Europe District / flickr

One of the great Biblical words is remember. The people of God always got into trouble when they forgot. This is why the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust is so important. At sunset tonight this remembering one of the most painful experiences in our history begins. George Santayana once said that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” No wonder the Jews mark this day and say: “Never again.”

This whole sorry picture of hatred and vengeance boggles our minds after all these years. But this day should

photo reserved by lapidim/ flickr

give us all pause to remember. Do we leave Palestinians out? Can we push the immigrants out of the circle? What about the Muslims? Or the black folk after all these years are scared every time one of their own leaves the house. Will they ever come back? What about sexual trafficking and rape and abuse, abuse, abuse. What about all the lies and smears that have rained down on this black President and his family? What about the gridlock so powerful in Washington that, falling through the cracks are so many with enormous needs?

I am told that a group from the US Army Corp of Engineers European District volunteer to clean the individual memorials found all over Weisbaden, Germany. Maybe it is time for all of us to pick up our brooms and rags and buckets and cleanup the mess that we, and so many others, have made.

We say never again and yet we know that across this troubled world we must have forgotten all the tears and the graves and the mental illness and the horror of so much. Maybe it is too much to ask everyone to help make this world better—but we can in that tiny spot where we live and work and do.

I keep hoping the gospel writer of the book of John was right when he said: “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out.” The vision and the dream is still with us. Dear God: Let it shine, let is shine, let is shine.

"Abraham, Father of Faith, could it have been

  what you thought was God's voice, commanding you,

then only with Isaac bound, the Divine hand

  dragging down your wrist

to halt the war on your boy?

  And Sarah, what of Sarah? Did the two,

did the three of you, speak again, ever,

of that or anything else again, ever?'

    --excerpt from poem, "In a Bar in Chicago,"

          by Michael Dennis Browne

Names of more than 2400 people inset in pavement slab of Jewish victims in Mannheim.
photo by lanier67 / flickr

--Roge Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com