What will you do this Remembrance Day? At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month where will you be?

In this country, we have in different ways, since 1919, set aside time and space to Remember, but it seems as the years pass, fewer and fewer people are taking the time to remember.

Why is that?

Remembrance Day used to be a National Holiday but that is no longer true.

Why is that? I can recall in years gone by that people who couldn't make it out to a Remembrance Day service and who found themselves on a roadway, would pull over and stop in order to remember, but few do that today.

Why is that?

I suppose the answer is simple really, we are too busy, too caught up in the business of economics and prosperity to take the time to remember those who gave their lives that we might have the life of freedom that we live. Is two minutes, too much to ask?

For more than two decades men and woman fought for freedom.

For more than two decades children were left without fathers and brides without spouses. For more than two decades men and women trudged through winter's coldest cold and summer's hottest heat.

For more than two decades soldiers fell on bloodied battlefields. Is two minutes, too much to ask? Men and women continue to fight for freedom and peace. Children are still left without fathers and brides without husbands. To this day, men and women continue to trudge through unbearable conditions.

And yes, on this very day, soldiers will fall on bloodied battlefields, and civilians will perish on their own city streets.

To date, 132 Canadian Soldiers have died in service for the greater good of all in Afghanistan. Is two minutes, too much to ask? Our culture, our world, has become so busy and instant that we hardly even know how to be still for a mere two minutes.

From the moment our alarm rings in the morning until we collapse with exhaustion into our bed at night, our every moment is filled with doing something.

We are even doing it to our children, enrolling them in four or five activities or lessons each week.

Idleness, rest and quiet have become a vice in our times. Doing and being active are upheld as achievements and goals to strive for, so much so that taking the time to reflect on what it is that we have achieved becomes almost impossible to do. We have forgotten how to be still.

I am grateful that our children now go to school on Remembrance Day because there they will remember. They learn songs and make poppies and stand still for two minutes at 11am. I am grateful that my vocation allows me to take part in Remembrance Day services with the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 220 and the community.

But my heart aches that so few employees of so many companies in this great country of ours will be given the opportunity, or even if given, will take the opportunity to simply stand at their desk and quietly remember. Will cash registers stop ringing at 11am on the 11th? Will traffic stop? Will restaurants become quiet and still? Will radios and televisions air only silence? Will coffee and donuts be served? Will telephones go unanswered or stop ringing all together?

Based on a real life moment on November 11, 1999, Terry Kelly's "A Pittance of Time" is a poignant song and video that challenges each of us to Remember. Is two minutes, too much to ask? Someone much wiser than me has said, "If we forget the past, then we are doomed to repeat it."

Let us remember, lest we forget.

"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. We will remember them."

Remembrance Day Services begin at the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 220 at 10:00am. Parade forms at 10:45 to march to Cenotaph for 11:00am.

The Reverend Susan D. Wilson, B.Sc. (OT), M.Div. Rector and Pastor for St. Paul's, Shelburne