Why remembering matters - oh, and what is the thing about honor??

Listen here:  https://www.pastorwoman.net/podcast/episode/1bbf0af0/why-rememberin...

Why remembering mAtTers.

Memorial Day, 2025.

While most of my writing is not, this particular one is aimed at Americans.

'Have plans this weekend? My gym friend cast over his shoulder, just extending a pleasantry, but I knew he was asking whether or not I had plans for fun. It caused me to think, 'When did Memorial Day weekend become another excuse for gathering for a cookout or a party?'

Memorial Day or 'Decoration Day' as my mama used to call it, is a day to remember and honor the thousands of military men and women who died while serving our country.

It seems the Civil War was the catalyst for setting a day aside to honor the fallen, as communities came together to decorate the graves of those who died during service--some 620,000 Americans!1 While there were set-aside days since 1868, a federal holiday was not established until 1971.

We remember because the freedom we enjoy was not free at all.  

Yesterday, I reached out to a few friends who served in our military, asking why they thought it important to recognize Memorial Day. Consider this: "In 2007, I spent Memorial Day in Fallujah. Although I was on my fifth tour in Iraq, it was the first deployment when I buried friends. I attended more than three dozen memorial services that deployment. I remember the names and faces of the dead. Memorial Day was no longer an abstraction.2 And then there were those who came home severely wounded; oh, they resumed life, but things were forever different. Two friends recalled those who came back, but just could not get over the nightmares of what they had seen and experienced, and ultimately, took their own lives.

Harry Truman said,

Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude.

America will never forget their sacrifices."3

But Truman said that in 1945, and it feels to me like a lot of us have forgotten.

O, we must keep that truth alive! Ours is a courageous past ~ a benevolent legacy of a country that has come to the aid of more repressed countries and disadvantaged people groups than any other in the history of the world.  

^{We set aside Memorial Day as a day to honor those who gave their all.}

But what of those who do not honor America's fallen?

Perhaps therein lies the problem: somewhere along the line, in the last few decades, it seems there is less appreciation for the privileges and freedoms we enjoy in America.

Maybe the importance of honoring the fallen has loomed large in the back of my mind all week because I listened to several interviews of Ayaan Hirsi Ali - and how much she loves this country. Her story is incredible - and I would say unbelievable - if it were not true! Born in war-torn Somalia, into a Muslim family of course, body mutilated because she was a female, she moves from country to country including Saudi Arabia - eventually seeking asylum in Holland.4

Ayaan quickly learned Dutch and was able to study at the University of Leiden, earning her M.A. in political science. Working as a translator for Somali immigrants, she saw first hand the inconsistencies between liberal, Western society and tribal, Muslim cultures. After 9/11, she renounced her Muslim faith and became an atheist.

Stick with me here--Ayaan then collaborated on a movie called "Submission"5 ; her collaborator, Theo van Gogh, was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam, a note stabbed into his body warning that Ayaan would be next. 

In spite of the death threats, she has not been silenced. In fact, in 2006, she came to America. And wonder of wonders, Ayaan came to know Jesus as Savior just two years ago.6,7. [sometimes we do not know what we have until we hear from someone who has come from such a very different cultural experience than our own]

You know by now that I am a tad sentimental, but I vividly remember the first time I saw the Statue of Liberty from a ferry in New York Harbor. Tears ran down my face as I thought of how many people had streamed into America in search of freedom.  #and.still.do.

This plaque at the lovely lady's feet captures it well: 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!⁸

^{To this day, people want to come to America because we are free.}

One more thing: the freedom we enjoy in Jesus Christ was not free either.  By choice, in order that we might be made right with him and enjoy him forever, he paid the ultimate price.  No, 

the freedom we enjoy in Christ wasn’t free either 

- it cost Jesus everything.

Thank God for freedom because no matter where you are in this great wide world, if you are in Jesus Christ, you are free.  As Paul so eloquently but succinctly wrote,  “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”⁹

With gratitude in my heart,

Watch these Marines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ9AVh4Dzf4

Christine

PastorWoman.net

THESE ARE SOME GREAT RESOURCES:

1 - https://newsroom.woundedwarriorproject.org/What-is-Memorial-Day-Fac...

2 - https://warontherocks.com/2021/05/the-risks-of-memorial-day-not-bei...

3 - https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/5/address-broad...

4 - Hoover Institution, https://www.hoover.org/profiles/ayaan-hirsi-ali#:~:text=She quickly ...

5 - Submission, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxu5D0eX_k8.

6 - https://www.thefp.com/p/ayaan-hirsi-ali-why-i-am-now-christian-atheism

7 - THIS IS INCREDIBLE, one take of Ayaan's testimony: with Alex O'Connor, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEXymLAqqIs

^{8 - “New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, https://www.howtallisthestatueofliberty.org/what-is-the-quote-on-the-statue-of-liberty/}

^{9 - Romans 8.1}