By the Way: Remembering in a time of forgetting

By Rev. Dr. Nancy Cocks on November 9, 2019.

I’m the daughter of a soldier. My dad and his three brothers took part in European campaigns in the Second World War. Recently I’ve been retracing my father’s steps in Italy – Sicily, Monte Cassino, Ortona, Borgo San Lorenzo. I’ve come to understand his mixed emotions about the beauty and the violence he faced there. One uncle shared in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp. The horror he met deeply affected him. Another suffered from his wounds for the rest of his life. My mother’s brother never came home. This weekend I’m remembering what they gave for Canada.

But 80 years after the Second World War began, I can’t help but feel we’re forgetting the values they fought to defend. My dad had a Sikh comrade in his unit, a man he respected and admired despite their religious and cultural differences. Dad would be appalled by the religious intolerance marching into Canada these days. I expect my uncle whose heart was torn seeing the prisoners in that concentration camp would be astounded that some Canadians now flirt with neo-Nazi ideas and praise Hitler. Do they have any idea of the horrors he provoked? In this recent election, we’ve heard candidates twist the truth and incite conspiracy theories about their opponents. Don’t they remember that Mussolini and Hitler were masters of conspiracy theories about minority groups and perceived “threats”? What has happened to those touchstones of democracy, telling the truth and honouring differences through debate rather than distortion?

Jesus said, “There is nothing hidden that will not come to light.” (Lk 8.17) In these days when truth is so vulnerable to manipulation by those seeking some kind of power, I cling to this hope. When hatred or fear of those who differ from us disguise themselves as freedom of speech, I have to believe my dad and my uncles were not defending the right to cloak such hatred in the rhetoric of freedom. They freely gave up their youth in order to unmask distortions of the truth and liberate those who had been targeted by vicious lies and unspeakable violence.

Dad taught us a prayer which he often said at meal time, a good prayer for this time of Remembrance: For all benefits received, for truth and freedom, for every task and every opportunity to serve, accept our thanks, O God. In this moment when so many people seem to feel hard done by, I will remember what my soldier father taught me. To live in Canada is to know benefits beyond what most people in the world enjoy. Freedom for us all depends on respecting the truth, not twisting it. And there is a privilege to be discovered in serving others, including others very different from ourselves. My dad not only fought to defend these values. He lived them every day until he died. Accept our thanks, O God.

Rev. Dr. Nancy Cocks is a retired Presbyterian minister.

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