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Our National memory
Last weekend's remembrance of the holocaust was important for a country that has such a short memory. Without the celluloid footage, survivors' testimonies and Schindler's List, yesterday's evils could be locked away for ever just because we cannot cope with it. Now even 'Auschwitz' is a word unknown to my computer's spell checker.
To the credit of the organisers, the Holocaust was relayed to the nation as an abomination of devastating enormity and unspeakable evil. A gathering of national and religious leaders certainly showed kindness to the Jewish community and removed some of their isolation in suffering. This was good.
One of Tony Blair's comments came the closest to the heart of the matter - he admitted that each one of us has the seed of such atrocity in our own nature. This comment momentarily stemmed the headlong rush of humanistic piety.
The fact remains that the sinful nature which is common to all human beings - and that we ourselves also possess - is capable of the of the most awful and shameful deeds imaginable (and unimaginable).
This last decade has freshly exhibited that, even in Europe, the sinful nature will stop at nothing to get its own way .
The fallacy in the ceremony was the notion that if we remember our history, it will never happen again. Perhaps the recollection of yesterday may reduce the number of passive observers who 'mind their own business' and simply let it happen. Yet when anyone does dare to intervene, then it seems that half the world is ready to condemn the involvement as belligerent aggression.
However nice it would be to think that the world not return to yesterday's evil, the case has not yet been proved in all of human history!
In order to demonstrate solidarity with the Jews (or at least our shared disgust of Nazi behaviour) each of the religious and community leaders lit a candle. But what did this really mean?
The lighted candle meant different things to different people. It may have meant lives lost or lives yet to be spent in service of others. It may have meant prayers for the dead or the living. It may have meant reincarnated old life or resurrected new life, grief or hope, repentance or rededication.
Unity was achieved without words. No words to disagree about; no theology to be contested and no creed to be believed. The correctness of removing true words that others may disagree with leaves only the image but no substance. This is the void God's Word is designed to fill, but in its absence, Satan thrives!
This apparently magnanimous gesture of community solidarity with the Jews demonstrated the true nature of the new inter-faith worship. This is the new ecumenism which is becoming common in our schools and on our screens.
We are now a multi-cultural nation and it is right to treat everyone equally without discrimination. But by making every religion equally valid we deprive all cultures of God's Way to Truth and Life.
How soon we forget our heritage. In order to dispose of cultural discrimination we have agreed to share an ambiguus image and not to mention the Word of Life, the Messiah of the Jews.
Toxic Relationship
HE WHO WALKS WITH THE WISE GROWS WISE,
BUT A COMPANION OF FOOLS SUFFERS HARM.
Proverbs 13:20
If you're going to get the most out of your life, you've got to learn to recognise toxic relationships, then know how to walk away from them. Be more discerning about the company you keep! Sever any tie that strangles or limits you!
A toxic relationship is like a leg with gangrene; if you don't amputate it, the infection can cost you your life. Unless you have the wisdom and the courage to cut off what won't heal - you'll eventually end up losing a lot more.
Have you heard the story about the scorpion who asked the frog to carry him across the river because he couldn't swim? The frog said, "If I carry you on my back you'll sting me." The scorpion replied, "If I did that, we'd both drown." The frog thought about it, found it convincing and told him to hop on. But when they were halfway across the river the scorpion stung him anyway. As they were both drowning the frog said in disbelief, "You promised you wouldn't; why did you sting me?" The scorpion replied, "I can't help it; it's my nature to sting!" Today ask God to help you discern the 'toxic relationships' in your life and to give you the strength to disconnect from them. Your future depends on it!
Reproduced by permission of United Christian Broadcasters.
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