Recovering from a throat infection I have been obliged to spend most of my time in bed this past few days. It has been an unexpected joy to simply be able to lie and listen to the radio – in particular, Classic FM – and engage in some deep meditative thought.
Quite by accident, I have found myself caught up in both the Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday memorial silences at eleven o’clock each morning – how amazingly powerful those silences are!
Like most people, members of my family were involved in both World Wars. One of my grandfathers sailed the Mediterranean with the Royal Navy, while my other grandfather served with the medical corps at Gallipoli, and one of my uncles sailed in the Merchant Navy with the South Atlantic convoys, among other dangerous voyages.
When I was a teenager in the early 1970’s, I found myself with my family driving across part of France which had been completely destroyed in the First World War, and was caught up by the awful atmosphere of the place – it has only just dawned on me that it is exactly the same distance in time from the present day back to the ’70s as it was in the ’70’s back to when the battles were first fought… in other words, not that long at all really.
During those Remembrance silences – and beyond – I have found myself thinking about all the people who died in both wars (as well as the many others which have raged around the planet throughout the 20th Century) but also about the many millions of people who lost their lives in other ways without actually dying – the wounded and disabled, the many who suffered from Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome, who returned home strangers to their families, unable to live ever again in a normal peacetime society; those who became violent in response to their invisible pain, those who ended up in lunatic asylums, driven out of their minds by the horror of it all… and their families, especially the children, who’s lives were warped and shattered by the incomprehensible actions of their parents – generations damaged, scarred, torn apart, their pain still impacting in dysfunctional families today.
And what about all the non-human unwilling and innocent victims, the domestic animals who were left to starve or die in bewilderment and agony; the wild animals who’s habitats were cruelly annihilated, obliterated off the face of the earth for ever more… the bird life and insects and fish who were exploded, crushed, poisoned; the plants and trees and quiet places which were destroyed for ever.
So much pain and suffering.
But we can ALL do something, sitting in our chairs, reading this post, here and now. We all have a responsibility to help heal, on every level, what has taken place; what is taking place. Not by indulging in negative emotions such as anger, hate, indignation and judgement, but by releasing love, kindness and compassion from our hearts. Nor must we be selective but embrace everywhere and everyone. People who are ‘behaving badly’ are only poor struggling souls whose awful actions are really cries for help. As you fill yourselves up with good will towards all, it will spill over and flow out into our world, to wherever it is most needed.
Here we are in the month of November and next month many of us shall be celebrating Christmas, the so-called ‘Season’ of just such ‘Good Will’. Why should these feelings and responses be confined to just a few days out of the year? Why do we need ‘permission’ to be granted by a date on a calendar to be the very best we can be and fill our world with love?
Be kind to others. Be kind to yourself. Remember what humanity is responsible for in the past, and what we are witnessing being perpetrated now, today.
Comments about and condemnation of consumerism and commercialisation are rife, especially in the weeks before Christmas. Here is one gift you can give which is absolutely free but, in effect, priceless beyond comprehension. Simply keep the love flowing for it will surely find its mark.
