Memories
Memories are strange things. They are so uniquely personal to us, regardless of whether they are viewed through a lens with rose-tinted hues, treasured and savoured; or they paint a bleak and colourless picture, desperate to be forgotten but still clinging on to our consciousness. Corrie Ten Boom once said, “Memories are a key, not to the past, but to the future.” No matter what form memories take, they are important for teaching and shaping us.
2018 marks two significant anniversaries that, for many, will represent painful memories: 100 years since the end of the First World War and 50 years since the beginning of the Troubles. In this edition, Rev Mark Donald and Major Ian Kyle give their reflections on a recent trip to the First World War battlefields, where a Presbyterian delegation paid tribute to the Presbyterian soldiers and chaplains who died there. Mr Donald acknowledges, “Something very basic in our humanity is lost if we fail to remember.”
In looking back at the atrocities of the Troubles, PCI, at the 2016 General Assembly, asked the question of how we, as a denomination, should respond. Rev Tony Davidson explains how part of that question is being answered through the publication of a PCI-commissioned book. Due to be published in 2019, it will reflect the voices and experiences of 100 Presbyterians on the past. He says, “…our Church has courageously decided to transparently allow others to critically assess our witness.”
This month we also highlight two, more recent, stories involving painful memories. In Faughanvale Presbyterian Church, Co Londonderry, Suzanne Hamilton meets members who were flooded out of their homes a year ago. Local churches rallied around those affected and have continued their support, most recently by holding a family fun day.
Further afield, Moderator, Dr Charles McMullen, reports on his trip to Jordan where he and wife Barbara heard harrowing stories from refugees. He explains how one mother was “so traumatised after a bruising physical and psychological encounter with ISIS that she still cannot talk about her horrendous experiences.”
It is possible for memories, even awful ones, to be transformed when viewed through a lens of faith. As Rev Lindsay Blair, minister of Faughanvale Presbyterian, says, “…through all the suffering and pain that people have been through, hope is to be found in the Lord and his good news to us in Jesus Christ.”
During this remembrance season, as we look back to the past, let us try and view it all through the lens of Jesus; trusting in his faithfulness and resting in his love.
The Presbyterian Herald is the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. It provides a forum for debate and discussion on a wide range of topics and aims to challenge and encourage Presbyterians, as well as inform them about what the wider Church is involved in. It has a readership in excess of 25,000 and is distributed throughout Ireland.
To find out more go to www.presbyterianireland.org/herald