Remembrance Day

And what of war? So many reasons - given, and received - for war, and its "Raison D'Etre":political, tribal, religious, social, financial, ethnic, geopolitical. At the time, so ardent the heart, so urgent the need, so desperate the time.....so quiet, so quick, and so stern the response. So convinced, always, of necessity, of freedom and betterment, (sometimes)rather than glory and glamour, lives are taken, and offered: lives which could have been led; lives which could have been lived; lives which could have been filled with love and laughter, excitement and hope, honourable effort, rewarded in the sensibilities of its results, both tangible and intangible. Alas...sanity and consideration were not enough. Opportunity for lives well-lived were stolen in moments of our worst towards each other....life, in its demands and incessant need, became - and become, for some - too daunting a task, too monotonous a responsibility, too difficult an effort, too frustrating for further discussion, further effort...further hope. The inabilities of those with power to lead in Possibility and Remembrance of wars past, result in the repeated sacrifice and death of the brave, the obedient, the desperate, the ardent, the trusting, and the hands of beauty, creation, shelter and healing, help and new horizons, are reduced to unending pain and hope's ending: we die. What we remember - not celebrate - on this day, is the Great Respect and the Great Gifts of lives which stopped in the midst of striving for the best in our hearts, to stop the terror of never being allowed to know its sweetness, and its grace, its wonder and its awe, for even a moment: no mornings of mist on a mountainside, no quiet evenings of the haunting serenade of a loon's call...no Monet, no sparkling breathless eyes on Christmas morning...no rest and recall, for all the joys of yesteryear. We shall never Forget, and those lives never lived, perhaps, as they might have been, will mean something new, and Real, for those who have yet to realize the privilege of that possibility. We shall Love, in a new, perhaps gentler way, and understand the word, afresh, even as we discover, anew, its complexities, and costs...... ........And War, like Hatred, will know its place - having been thwarted, yet again, by its Master:Love.