The other day I bought my poppy as I always do, this time in my local shopping centre. Perhaps more than ever before, though, I have been thoughtful. What does it mean to give money in this way? And what does the poppy symbolize that I have pinned to my coat?

I look back and remember the men who died in the First and Second World Wars. I think of those who still live. And I remember. When I grew up our talk of these wars was laden with ideas of “right” and “wrong”. To have fought was to be proud. Behind the rhetoric lay many unspoken subtleties and a great deal of human suffering.

This year, in the UK, our remembrance spans a full century, from those men who went to the most awful of wars early in the 20th Century to those whose bodies have come home and into the care of grieving family, friends and relatives early in the 21st Century.

Always, the words of Wilfred Owen come to mind. I am the enemy you killed, my friend. For whatever the rhetoric of war – and of our politicians here in 2009 – the men, women and children who die in conflict are just that. Men. Women. Children. Our fellow human beings.

As I remember I also look forward, yearning for a time when we come to differences of view – whether person to person, ethnic group to ethnic group, religion to religion or nation to nation – with the deep understanding of our shared humanity implied in this line in Owen’s poem, Strange Meeting. I think of the clarity of intention, the heart and spirit, the skills needed to make this dream a reality.

And, meantime, I remember all those who are involved in or affected by war. I remember that, whatever “side” we think we are on, we are all doing the best we know how – for now. And I remember that there is a future and that we do have the capacity to learn. If not yet, some time…