|

|

|

|

|

|

|

| | |

| | | |

| | | | |

| | | | |

| | |

| | | | | | | | | | |

As people in Northern Ireland continue to experience a new political stability, the effects of nearly four decades of civil conflict and division remain as a potent legacy for all communities. The dreadful events with their pain and terror, destroying life and inflicting trauma on individuals, families and society are, hopefully, a thing of the past. However, the hurt and the memory remain.
Some wounds and hurts may heal, while many will carry the burden of their injury and loss to the grave. Nothing, however, can take away the memories. Indeed, the capacity to remember, however different our various recollections may be, is one thing we have in common as an integral part of our shared humanity.

These memories, the way we recall them and how we choose to share them with future generations, play a significant part in making us who we are as people and as a society. As Miroslav Volf notes in his latest book, The End of Memory, 'Memory is fundamental not only to human functioning but also to our sense of identity.'

How we remember is therefore important for the wellbeing of communities. Politically, memory is something that can play 'a significant role in resolving conflict rather than in making ephemeral deals' according to Hillel Levine. How we choose to reflect and remember when conflict is ended is a measure of the quality of peace that we are capable of building.

Remembering our past is such a contested idea and indicates the depth of the division among us and the hard work that remains if the future is not to be a rerun of ancient animosities. Yet we memorialise our past in ways more common and every-day than we sometimes care to notice or admit. From the private annual visit to a graveyard, to the formality of Remembrance Sunday; from the memorials to paramilitary dead to marking the anniversary of major events - each community remembers.

For the Christian, remembrance is at the heart of our faith. The great biblical events of redemption, the Exodus from Egypt and the Passion of Christ, are to be remembered through the worship and liturgy of the people of God. And in so doing we anticipate a future when the promise of these events will be realised and the wounds of human history and experience will be healed.

Most importantly, such remembrance takes place in the context where God speaks the searing truth of our disorder in the same breath as the gracious invitation to be forgiven. Remembering the violence and brokenness of human conflict must for the Christian begin and end with the most disturbing principle at work in our world, that God loves us all without favour.

David Porter