Theology CafeWhat Future Wales?Back to the Future

KeywordsA vocabulary of culture and societyRaymond Williams

What Future for Wales?

Past & Future VisionSustainability

CreativityCompassionWellbeing

Theology CafeWhat Future Wales?Back to the Future

Those who forget history

are condemned to repeat it.

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana, US philosopher and poet (1863-1952)

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

British Statesman and Philosopher Philosophical founder of modern political conservatism

History

Examples of Welsh Memory

Songs by Hannah Dolan-Smith

Hiraeth

Homesickness, tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed.

It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness,

and the earnest desire for the Wales of the past.

Examples of Welsh Memory

Invitation to the MealIn this place where heaven and earth meetUnder the rainbow of God’s promiseIn this sharing of bread and wineFuture hope becomes reality now.

So bring your scorched earth Bring your harvest Bring your open sky Bring your restless guilty waters Bring your swift unbending road Bring your urgent inner city To the table where your Host says: ‘I make all things new’.

Questions

• What aspects of Wales’ history would we want to retain in our memories and in our future vision? Why?

• How should we keep these memories alive?• What are the ‘key words’ in the vision of a

future for Wales, according to the texts you have in front of you?