We come together as one on Remembrance Day to honor those who have fallen in RhyDin: those who have gone before us in battle, who have succumbed to disease, old age, the predations of an uncertain Nexus, or calamities of magic. We come together to say for all those who have been lost, we remember.
But on this Remembrance Day " the first of many more we will celebrate as a community over the years to come " much of the loss we recognize is still fresh. As a city, a nation-state and a planet still recovering from the assault of a silent, merciless and indiscriminate killer, we come together on this day both to celebrate and to mourn the loss of those who passed before their time.
Some of those who were our allies abroad in these dim days have turned away, frightened for their own interests. Some who wear the face of citizen within our very borders have used the tragic circumstances of this virus to do us deeper harm, through profiteering or outright acts of terror and violence. Such actions are intolerable.
However, we have also seen many more people shine, blazing as watch fires in the midst of great darkness. Neighbors who might once have been strangers have reached out their hands to help one another, businesses large and small have put aside self-interest for the common interest, and an entire city has mobilized to prevent the spread of both disease and violence. Of such deeds, heroes are born.
And so we grieve for our losses even as we take pride in how we have navigated through this adversity and risen above the reach of those who would pull us down. The toil, suffering and sacrifice of all those who have gone before us was not in vain. It has been our guide. It has contributed to who we are, and what we, as a united people, are becoming.
Honor them. Remember their courage and their optimism and imitate their examples. Remember, RhyDin, what they have taught us of virtue, of love of family and community, of the price of freedom. Remember, and as we move forward, act. Build on what they have taught and the memory of what they gave will never fade.
I leave you with words of promise, penned by the Terran, Khalil Gibran.
" Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go. We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered. Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken. But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again, And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak. Yea, I shall return with the tide, And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding."
from The Farewell XXCIII, by Khalil Gibran
But on this Remembrance Day " the first of many more we will celebrate as a community over the years to come " much of the loss we recognize is still fresh. As a city, a nation-state and a planet still recovering from the assault of a silent, merciless and indiscriminate killer, we come together on this day both to celebrate and to mourn the loss of those who passed before their time.
Some of those who were our allies abroad in these dim days have turned away, frightened for their own interests. Some who wear the face of citizen within our very borders have used the tragic circumstances of this virus to do us deeper harm, through profiteering or outright acts of terror and violence. Such actions are intolerable.
However, we have also seen many more people shine, blazing as watch fires in the midst of great darkness. Neighbors who might once have been strangers have reached out their hands to help one another, businesses large and small have put aside self-interest for the common interest, and an entire city has mobilized to prevent the spread of both disease and violence. Of such deeds, heroes are born.
And so we grieve for our losses even as we take pride in how we have navigated through this adversity and risen above the reach of those who would pull us down. The toil, suffering and sacrifice of all those who have gone before us was not in vain. It has been our guide. It has contributed to who we are, and what we, as a united people, are becoming.
Honor them. Remember their courage and their optimism and imitate their examples. Remember, RhyDin, what they have taught us of virtue, of love of family and community, of the price of freedom. Remember, and as we move forward, act. Build on what they have taught and the memory of what they gave will never fade.
I leave you with words of promise, penned by the Terran, Khalil Gibran.
" Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go. We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered. Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken. But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again, And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak. Yea, I shall return with the tide, And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding."
from The Farewell XXCIII, by Khalil Gibran