Remembrance Day

I woke up this morning thinking that everyone was posting early for Remembrance Day before I finally got the date worked out in my head.

Source: Ali Taylor on
freeimages.com.

It still amazes me when I run into Americans who don't know about poppies or why other countries wear them. I don't know about everyone else, but I learned about the poppy tradition in high school (although U.S. veterans' groups that make and sell poppies usually do so around Memorial Day in May--but still, they do it). So I'm a bit sad to hear about the debate raging in the UK about the expectation that one must wear a poppy. As with so many other things, this is a personal decision about which different people will of course reach different conclusions, and it's a shame that it's become a battleground.

As it happens, "In Flanders Fields," while beautiful, is far from the only poem written about WWI. You can read several of them here, but the one I'm particularly touched by this Remembrance Day is "For the Fallen," which includes this beautiful verse:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

 May you and yours be blessed this Remembrance Day.