In cleaning out some shelves the other day, I found a copy of Newsweek, December 2, 1963. The issue was dedicated to articles about John F. Kennedy’s assassination the previous November.

Next I found a relative’s high school annual, published in 1918, the last year of World War I. The annual was dedicated to the first of the high school’s alumni to die in that war, on September 15, 1917, in France. His picture stares hopefully from the dedication page.

In my own files, I’ve saved clippings about the terrorism attacks of September 11, 2001. What might they mean to later generations? How close will they come to knowing the horror I felt as I watched the buildings fall?

How do we pass down our meaningful experiences? How do we help those who come after us to know, if only for an instant, what we feel now? For what reason? To learn from them? To ponder the results of our choices, wise and unwise?

We engage with our current communities. We also are a part of past communities. We make decisions that impact future communities. If we live only in the present, we may be swayed by current emotions to forget the lessons of the past. Studying the past, we may decide more wisely for the future.

“They who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”