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To Learn and Remember

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To Learn and Remember TO LEARN AND REMEMBER ◼ Why Remember the Past? Why do we bother to set aside a day of remembrance and celebra- tion of an event that happened almost 2½ centuries ago? If it’s just an excuse for workers to take a day off, a holiday for bankers and the post office, a time for shooting off fireworks because they’re pretty, or having parades because they’re interesting, or hosting back yard barbecues because we enjoy the food and drinks—why should we spend any time on a weekend like this talking about the distant past? Who cares what occurred so long ago, before anyone we’ve ever known was even born? In a constantly-changing world, where the way things were even a year ago or six months ago is not the way things are now, what possible relevance could the distant past have for us? Aren’t we told relentlessly to be constantly looking ahead and adapting to the new, improved, latest things and current ideas and attitudes? Who wants to be seen as out-of-date or old- fashioned or behind the times? Forget the past, we are urged; it’s the future that matters. That temptation to embrace a willful amnesia about the past is not new. It’s always been there, in every generation and society. It’s what Moses, the great leader of God’s people some 3,500 years ago, recognized as a grave danger. Let’s listen in on this profound mes- sage he delivered to his nation at that time, recorded in his final book, Deuteronomy. hese are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord T your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. 4Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6These command- ments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7Im- press them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. 10When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satis- fied, 12be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Deuteronomy 6:1-12, NIV The Light of Liberty In his powerful “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washing- ton in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lifted up the great documents of our nation, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, as “promissory notes to which every American is an heir.” The promise was not fulfilled instantly, and was not completely filled in King’s time, and it’s not yet fulfilled for every American even to this day. 2 Whatever the politics, and whatever the virtues and flaws, at its core I believe the protests at the unjust killing of a black man in Minneso- ta were really sparked by the promise of our founding. People don’t protest government injustice and abuse with righteous indignation in China or Iran, because those corrupt governments never promised justice to their people, and thus none of their citizens expect any- thing from the state except naked power and control. It is our lofty and ambitious goals that cause us to be upset when they are not per- fectly fulfilled. But the promise of America,—its shining light of liberty that has attracted millions of immigrants to the harbor where the robed lady holds her torch high—is one that can be lost by neglect and forget- fulness. Christian historian Eric Metaxas, in his excellent book on America, If You Can Keep It, warns that “we are in serious danger of letting that light of liberty go out in this generation.” It’s why he wrote his book: to teach and to remind us of what our founding principles are and who our great heroes and role models should be. It’s why this weekend is a necessary part of our annual calendar. And it’s why we are reading Deuteronomy again. Because the same concern that inspired Eric Metaxas inspired Moses: a concern that his people not lose what made them special, nor drift from their found- ing documents and principles, nor fall into the mistakes that other nations are prone to make. The Lessons of Deuteronomy The first five books of the Old Testament (written, or possibly super- vised in their writing, by Moses, but actually directly inspired and guided by God) provide detailed directions for the nation of Israel to have various holidays and special times of celebration built through- out their year—not unlike our own annual calendar. The purposes of these were two-fold: to TEACH younger generations about their past, their heritage, their founding values and their enduring truths, and to REMIND the adults of what they had previously learned (but could easily forget or neglect). America has its Memorial Day, Inde- 3 pendence Day and Veterans Day; we have ceremonies to mark and commemorate the birthdays of great leaders, the critical battles of our history (D-Day, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, September 11) and the important victories (V-E Day and V-J Day, etc.). We hope that chil- dren and teens pay attention on these days—which may be for them history but for many of us older folks are not just the ancient past but personal memories. 1. Why Teaching Is Crucial The premature end to live classroom teaching in schools and colleges across the country in March was an unexpected shock that forced a lot of hasty, and not always successful, adjustments. I’ve talked with a number of college and graduate students who found online teach- ing to be significantly less helpful than their classroom interactions. Professors and students alike had to make changes they weren’t pre- pared for. I suspect the far greater impact on educational quality has been experienced by students in high school and below. Not only did the senior classes get cheated out of their expected proms and graduations; there are sobering indicators that many students from grades K-12 didn’t learn as much as they needed to during those lost 2-3 months. Professional teachers are openly wondering what it will be like when the new school year begins again soon (assuming that classrooms will be open). How much review and remedial work will need to be done? How far behind has the bottom half of the class fallen? But as I search for a positive out of the negative of the virus shut- down of schools, hunting for that flower among the weeds, that rose among the thorns, here is one potential blessing. Some parents be- came much more engaged in their children’s learning process. The appropriate role of mother or father as the primary teacher— especially of values and faith and morality—is a strong biblical ethic. It was the assumption of Moses in Deuteronomy that the Hebrew children would not be shipped off to schools for all their teaching, but would learn primarily at home. There is no doubt that profes- sional teachers have a role in our modern and complex society, im- 4 parting special information and skill in their area of expertise. But outsourcing the raising of our kids completely to others carries sub- stantial risk. If dinner tables in homes have seen a higher level of in- teraction on things that matter since March, this would be a good thing for our nation. Why is the teaching of history a special concern for Moses and the leaders of Israel? And why should it be a concern for our generation of Americans as well? We know the warnings, such as from the 20th century historian: “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” We see how studying the past can give us helpful in- sights into dealing with the present and future—from the epidemiol- ogists like Deborah Birx, who studied the 1918 Spanish flu, to the business researchers like Jim Collins, who studied what great compa- nies have done in the past to make them great in order to establish wisdom for today’s business leaders. When properly done, history is not just names and dates, wars and treaties, in numbing succession. It’s the account of real people and their successes and failures. They hold up a mirror in which we can see ourselves. We need our younger generations of Americans to learn our history.
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