大象传媒

Good morning.
In 2004 my wife and I had a wonderful holiday in Egypt.聽 We did lots of proper tourist stuff, including a visit to the Temple of Queen Hat-shep-sut where the tourists were killed.
In the seven years that had passed since that tragedy it seemed as though the place had changed its name.聽 It had gained hyphens, like Southend-on-Sea, or Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe.聽 It kept being referred to as 鈥渢he-Temple-of-Queen-Hat-shep-sut-where-the-tourists-were-killed鈥�, as if that was now its proper name.聽 As if that one tragic event had come to define the place for ever.
Of course it鈥檚 right and proper that we should remember our history.聽 Both the inspiring stuff and the manifest mistakes so that we can learn from them, avoid making the same errors again and be encouraged to improve ourselves.
But I think it鈥檚 not good if we allow events in the past to define how we regard people in the present.聽 If we see the people of today through the spectacles of what their forebears did.
British people seeing German people in the light of the events of World War 2 鈥� and indeed vice versa.聽 Children from a depressed housing estate written off as the inevitable products of their parents鈥� failures.
And it can also be a problem when we see ourselves through the prism of the past, whether that be fitting our personal expectations to the lives of our parents or wringing our national hands over the errors of Empire.
Remembering is good, but should be used wisely.
Lord God,
may we learn from our past, and be properly inspired by it,
but may we also be open to your future;
to grow and live and move on,
following the light of your Son going before us
to new possibilities, new hopes, new life.
in his name we pray.
础尘别苍听听