"Lest We Forget" 1
"Thank God for a routine and boring life." 2I may never fully understand these truths just as most Biblical principals. However, the longer I live, I find it less urgent to forget my failings, and the need to accomplish. I have found the best teachers are the failings in my life and the best comfort is a boring and routine schedule.
God made us in His image and we are given such freedom to use holy talents to the point we are capable of doing anything we want. It is so tragic when mankind finds power in evil; blasphemy against God and destruction of humanity.
Sometimes people take positive comfort from tangible holy reminders such as the Bible, crosses, Magen David, or Hamsa. The deeper reminders usually come from sorrow, failings, and the remnants of object lessons found in cemeteries as we visit the graves of our family or museums which teach us of what evil can do and should encourage us to reverence God and humanity above our own desires.
I toured a museum and a living history village on a Native American reservation and I was offended by the evil man can do.
The mental hospital where I volunteered playing music had a treatment history exhibit and I was terribly offended.
Holocaust Museum with artifacts of human remains offends me;
Bull Run National Park where women and children were massacred offends me;
Chinese Railroad Workers Exhibit in San Francisco showing once noble human being reduced to slaves offends me;
Japanese Internment Camp that jailed innocent Americans offends me;
Factory Museum with pictures of poor women and child labor offends me;
A cinema history museum offends me;
Coal Mine exhibit in West Virginia offends me...
Surely I would never be so capable of such inhumanity... or would I? It pleases God that I am UK Celtic, Scandinavian, and Eastern Europe Semitic, but money always talks and I may have a price.
Oh God, Oh God have mercy on me and on the whole world for our rejection of God and humanity.
What are we to do without the reminders? After all, we are only human and money talks.
Money talks. Do I have a price? What is my price to Blaspheme God and destroy man? How much would I be paid?
Would my name be in the paper, billboards, on the cover of magazines, and praised by many followers? I would be paid much for my picture on the cover of magazines.
Would my influence pound on the hearts of all those who hear me? They will be happy to follow me.
Would I enjoy the thrill of minions, subordinates, underlings, my own slaves who follow me? I would feel empowered by their gratitude toward me.
Would I beat their backs or pull on their chains if they don't agree or keep up with me; better yet, I could slowly take away their ideas, stifle their imaginations, and really just throw them a bone once in a while. After all table scraps are better than no food at all and they will get used to it soon enough.
Would I laugh all the way to the bank completely careless of the destruction of life behind me?
I passified, comforted my followers and they had no idea they were slowly being erased...dust.
Surely I would never be so capable of such evil... or would I? The Cross of Jesus reminds me that I am offended by sin, by My Sin. What would I do without Holy Reminders?
Thank God I still cry when Remembering. I still cry for the sake of others. I still cry for the pain of others. I remember and I cry. I hold, kiss the cross...listen to speeches by Holocaust survivors...study the scriptures...try, try, try to hold on to the honor of Creator and humanity.
My teachers told me, 'You don't need college.'
My church, faith, denomination, people who claimed they loved me told me, 'You don't need college' and 'You need to detach from your family when you get married.'
My own colleagues are disappointed that I don't scrub their toilets.
O God, please save me from the luxury of this world's endless wealth of hate, self-loving power, greed, and blood lust vengeance and start the work in me first, lest I forget. Give me a heart and longing to serve rather than be served (3) and to be just a doorkeeper in Your House in heaven (4).
I will cry. Every time I want revenge and I want to hate...o my I cry Lest I forget to pay the cost of following Jesus.
