Chris Galbraith, the probationer at St. Philip’s, gathered thoughts about Remembrance Sunday from members of the congregation.  Working in conjunction with our Breakfast Club this reflection was put together and presented on Sun. 14 Nov. 2010.

1.         Well, we’ve got all these comments from members of the congregation but I’m still not sure what Remembrance Day means for people?

2.         It looks like it means a lot of very different things.  People have very personal memories, people that they have known and lost (shot down over France last few days of WW1), people have general comments both in support and against Remembrance Day.

3.         There are a lot of diverse views.

4.         But the views have been shared.  We have to take these thoughts and feelings people have shared with us and treat them carefully, with respect.

2.         The Storyteller who spoke to us said that World War 1 changed everything.  There are a number of comments from that war.  Memories from the children.  There’s a couple about men sent to France aged 19.

4.         The storyteller spoke about 19 being the age to enlist.  Whole streets signing up to fight for king and country.

3.         She told us about the Hearts team signing up and the impact that had on recruitment, 600 fans signing up.

1.         The Pals Battalions.  That feeling of excitement.  It would all be over by Christmas. A chance of adventure.

3.         And also for King and Country?

1.         Don’t think that would have come into it as the years dragged on.

4.         19 years old.  And younger ones signed up.  Lied about their age.  What did she say the recruitment officer told those who were underage; “Run round the block and come back when your 19”.

2.         It was the Somme that got me.  The bombardment of the German trenches.  The idea that there would be no one left to open fire.  The heavy packs, too heavy to run with.  The walk over the top, rifles held high.  The Pals Battalions, picked off one by one.

1.         6,000 casualties on the first day.  Shot, bombed, in that small strip of no mans land.

4.         Many of the men who survived didn’t talk about their experiences.  It was when they died that their family found the memories.  A small box with medals and scraps of notes, scribbled in pencil.  Feeling, thoughts, poems.  You could imagine them in the hellhole of the trenches at the Somme trying to make sense of things and thinking of home.

2.         How can you make sense of that?  How can we make sense far less the people who lived through it?

3.         I suppose that is what the poets tried to do, give meaning to what has no meaning.

1.         19, with your pals, watching them die, in the trenches, in the mud.  How do you make sense of that?

2.         For king and Country.  They were 19 years old on both sides.

3.         Rather be playing football.

4.         They did!  Plug street woods.  Christmas eve. Remember the storyteller, talking about how close the trenches were.  The Germans put up miniature Christmas trees, with candles on them, along the trenches.  Started signing Still the Night.  The British joined in.  The shouts across no mans land; “Merry Christmas Tommy”, “Merry Christmas Fritz”.  Exchanged cigarettes, badges, then that game of football.  Christmas Eve 1914.

Still the Night Sung: First verse spoken in German

2.         It didn’t stay silent, or holy.

1.         It still doesn’t answer why, why so many young men went so far away to die in a small area of land.  The rows and rows of graves of young men.

4.         Nor does it explain why the women served as nurses.  The Roses of No Mans Land.  Nellie Spindler, the only woman’s grave among 10,000 men’s.

3.         Or the women in the munitions factory, producing the weapons that destroyed the men in the frontline.

2.         And dying of lead poisoning by the thousand.

1.         New weapons.  Modern technologies.  Tanks, Gas, the devils smoke.  Think of what technology does to warfare today?

3.         There would be no football games now.  Don’t see the enemy.  It is either smart bombs and drones, like a computer game or road side bombs.

1.         The result is the same.  Fatherless, motherless children.  Parents loosing children.  Same as the quotes, from the wars of long ago.

2.         Maybe not the same numbers as the world wars but the same affect.  The loss of a brother or sister, an uncle, a father or mother, son or daughter, a friend.  Still Pals Battalions.

1.         It still doesn’t answer why?  Why wars, why remembrance Sunday?

4.         What have we got in the quotes?

2.         “A time to reflect of the cost paid for our freedom.  For evil to succeed requires good people to look the other way.”

3.         “What Remembrance Day means to me.  To those that survive and have lost friends, colleagues and comrades, each day is Remembrance Day.  One remembers not only those we know but all the fallen, and try to live the rest of our lives as more understanding and compassionate persons.”

4.         I suppose it is about remembering those who died and those they left behind.

3.         Remembering those who made other sacrifices; the nurses, the munitions workers and reserved occupations.

2.         Remembering those who survived, with survivor’s guilt and all that they had seen and done; survived with physical and mental wounds

1.         Remembering that there must be a better way than war?

2.         How does faith remain in the hell of war? Faith in God, faith for a better way?

4.         There is a quote about that somewhere.

Remembrance is for me, sadness and joy, despair and hope, fear and courage, change and stability:  the sadness of the young men and women’s deaths and the joy of their gift of life to us; the despair of the horror of what men will do to one another and the hope of a better world; The fear of the people as they cower beneath the onslaught of bombs and shells, and the courage of those who carried on in the face of destruction; the change in the familiar, comfortable world they knew and the stability of faith in our saviour.

1.         Somewhere in all this there is faith; there is God.

2.         May God grant peace throughout the world.

Prayer

Today we remember all the memories and reflect on the cost paid for our freedom.

We pray for the world.

Today we look back at the cost paid for our freedom.

We pray for all the countries that have been affected by war.

May God grant peace throughout the world.

We will remember.

Hear our prayer.

We pray for those who lived through war.

Hearing air raid sirens and bombs exploding.

We pray for those who endured constant exposure to the horrific elements of war.

We will remember.

Hear our prayer.

We pray for each other.

We pray for those who have lost such dear family and friends.

We pray for those who still bear the scars of war.

We will remember.

Hear our prayer.

We pray for those who died.

We pray for the men and women who gave their life on both sides of the battlefield.

We pray for medics who sacrificed their life to save others.

We pray for those that died young.

Today we remember the sadness and joy, the despair and hope, the fear and courage.

Today we remember the sadness of these deaths and the joy their lives brought us; the despair of the horror of what men will do to one another and the hope of a better world; the fear of the people as they cower beneath the onslaught of bombs and shells, and the courage of those who carried on in the face of destruction; the change in the familiar, comfortable world they knew and the stability of faith in our saviour.

Today we remember.

Amen