In the past, at this time of year, I have got up on a\nSunday morning, put on my best suit, crisp shirt, black tie, shiny shoes. I\nhave pinned metal and ribbon to my chest and walked down to the war memorial in\nthe village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the rest of the village inhabitants would be\nfiltering out of the church where they\u2019d spent the last hour on their\ndevotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We would gather in a sizeable collective around the war memorial where prayers would be led, and words would be said, by the parish priest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There would be the raising and lowering of flags, and the\nlaying of wreaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There would be the bugling of the Last Post, followed by a\nfinal hymn, a blessing from the priest and then I\u2019d walk back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year I didn\u2019t<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am becoming more anti-religious as I age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I am becoming angry at the religious invasion of what\nshould not be a religious event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The remembrance ceremony at the Cenotaph in London has no\nreligious flavour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That, in my eyes, is how it should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t need any religious undercurrent to make a\nceremony of remembrance into a significant event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, I find the Cenotaph\u2019s ceremony more poignant\nwithout any religious trappings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do wonder why we allow the Church of England or the\nRoman Catholic faith to hijack Remembrance Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems dishonest to transform a very human act \u2013 remembering\nthe fallen, paying tribute to absent friends (whether we knew them or not) \u2013 into\na religious ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ceremony of remembering should, in itself, be tribute\nenough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m sure we have all been to crematoria to see off people\nwe knew and loved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have \u2013 and too many times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t remember any of those people with less feeling because\nthose ceremonies had no religious aspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t need a priest I\u2019m only going to see once a year,\nto lead me (and a hundred or so others) in The Lord\u2019s Prayer to help me remember\npeople I used to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t need any of these things to help me pay respect\nto people who have fallen in the service of their country, people who I hadn\u2019t\nhad the opportunity to meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If there\u2019s a benefit to having a religious figure lead\nprayers and hymns, why isn\u2019t this role extended to all religions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And to humanists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why, if there is a benefit (and to whom \u2013 because I have\nno idea who might benefit from it) in having a vicar or a priest lead prayers\nand hymns, is there no religious leader doing the same thing at the Cenotaph?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t have an answer to any of these questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more I think about it, the more I repeatedly come\nback to how idiotic it is to turn a remembrance ceremony \u2013 a commemoration of\nfallen humans who were, without a doubt, drawn from all religions (and a number\nof whom would have been irreligious) into a single-religion event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That kind of thinking is dysfunctional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It should be changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until it is I shall no longer take part.\n\n\n\nI shall do my own remembering, on my terms. I\nshall pay my own respects. And I shall think my own thoughts, without needing\nsomeone to stand near me and speak words in which I have no belief.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the past, at this time of year, I have got up on a Sunday morning, put on my best suit, crisp shirt, black tie,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}