Forgetting the Past...

It amazes me how little we learn from the past. I mentioned before that we have been talking about Liberia at church. Well tonight, a guy from Liberia came and talked. He told us the history, which I had heard, but just hearing it all together was fascinating. For those of you who don't know, Liberia was founded by the US as a place for freed slaves. People in the US didn't want them around so sent them "home" to Africa. The "funny" thing is that once they got there, they basically enslaved the native Africans. They weren't allowed to vote until the mid 1900's and really had no power. So the people from the US went to Liberia and did the same thing that had been done to them.

It is frustrating that we tend to do the same thing over and over again. But I suppose it has been true from the beginning of time. I mean look at the Israelites. Time after time they saw God do amazing things in their community and time after time they turned away from Him.

How do we solve this problem? How to we remember history and learn from the things that happened in the past? I suppose a good start is to tell the stories. Tell the good ones. Tell the bad ones. What we haven't heard, we can't learn from.