<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><!-- originalMessage --><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>Thanks for a very moving reflection, Allison.<div>Indeed, 'Ain't going to do war no more', as l and others may have once sung, doesn't quite capture the horrors of humanity in conflict. I know close relatives and friends and relatives of friends who flew B-29 bombers, escaped torpedoed ships, liberated concentration camps, powered nuclear bombs, left London during the blitz, and died on a Dunkirk beach. </div><div>One day war will be behind us either in this life or in the life to come. May we all be instruments of a just peace that passes all understanding through Jesus Christ our Lord. </div><div>Peace and blessings, </div><div>Joe</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><!-- originalMessage --><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Allison Dean <aaclinedean@gmail.com> </div><div>Date: 11/12/17 11:26 AM (GMT+01:00) </div><div>To: propertalk@stsams.org </div><div>Subject: [Propertalk] Remembrance Sunday 2017 Reflection </div><div><br></div></div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Greetings everyone.<br><br>I don't post much anymore but today we have a
live service in the hospital chapel with an Act of Remembrance to start
it all off (complete with the sounds of Big Ben chiming at 11:00
a.m.). This reflection is too late to use for many people but is
offered with many thanks for the inspiration given by all of you every
week. The idea for it came from a reflection by Stephen Cherry several
years ago. Hoping all goes well with each of you wherever you are this
day.<br><br>Allison<br><br>Allison Cline-Dean,<br>Lead Chaplain,<br>Colchester General University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust<br>Colchester, Essex, UK<br><br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">Remembrance Sunday 2017</span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%" lang="EN-US">‘For
everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven.’
(Ecclesiastes 3.1)</span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><br><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%" lang="EN-US"></span><span style="line-height:150%"></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">Today it is time of remembrance, recalling different
aspects of conflict during two minutes of silence!<span> </span>It brings young and old together in a way
that no other day can.<span> </span>What ran through
your mind during that two minutes of silence?<span>
</span>Memories of long-deceased relatives whose pictures hung on walls as you
were growing up?<span> </span>Stories about aunts and
uncles, grandparents who served in the war or were shared with you as you grew
up?<span> </span>Friends and family who have served
in the more modern conflicts?<span> </span></span><span style="line-height:150%" lang="EN-US">Many younger people will have stretched their
imaginations to try to grasp what those people must be feeling. However, I
believe that most people will be praying that as time rolls forwards human
beings will find ways of resolving their differences and repelling aggressors which
do not involve warfare.</span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><br><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%" lang="EN-US"></span><span style="line-height:150%"></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">I have no personal memories of wartime.<span> </span>My parents did not serve either – both were
too young.<span> </span>However my Uncle Ron was a
rear gunner with the Canadian contingent of the RAF in WW2 and lived to tell
the tale – but he spoke of that experience only once.<span> </span>That was when my then 12 year old son,
Bayden, asked him about flying during the war.<span>
</span>What my Uncle Ron spoke of was not of the horrors but of the courage and
bravery of those with whom he served as they ran to their planes when the
sirens sounded.<span> </span>That story turned my son
into a WW2 history buff with a special interest in military aircraft.<span> <br></span></span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><span><br></span></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">My Uncle Dave also was reticent in speaking of his
war-time experiences.<span> </span>He started sharing
one evening when Bayden and I were with my parents visiting my aunt and uncle
one Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday.<span> </span>There
was a WW2 Hollywood movie on that depicted the march of the Canadian troops
through a Dutch village and my uncle said “That’s not what happened!”.<span> </span>He had been there as well as taken part in
the liberation of Holland and a POW camp.<span>
</span>He spoke of seeing skeletal people as the POW camp was liberated and the
stench of the smoke from the gas chambers they smelled from five miles away.<span> </span>It took many years for Uncle Dave to be able
to return to Holland and he did so three times in the last 10 years of his life
courtesy the Canadian Veterans tours.<span> </span>He
recounted how he would be mobbed by the Dutch people and thanked although he
did not know any of them. <span><br></span></span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><span> <br></span></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">My paternal grandfather served in WW1 and he never
spoke of his experiences.<span> </span>It seems it
was quite common for veterans not to speak of their experiences.<span> </span>My uncles rarely spoke of what they had done,
nor did the veterans whom I served in the long-term care home in Canada.<span> </span>Those who were not severely cognitively
impaired said it was too painful.<span> </span>One
who was living with dementia had a memory triggered when I said that I had
visited the Juno Beach Museum in Normandy.<span>
</span>He said he come ashore at Juno Beach where for three days he picked up
bodies of dead soldiers even though he was not trained to do so – he never
spoke of it again and he shook as he recounted the experience.<span> </span>And then there was Annie, a British war bride
whose cognitive impairment was so severe that she was not able to speak yet
whenever it thundered, she would scream and try to dive under a bed.<span> </span>It was not until I conducted her funeral that
her daughter told the story of how her mother was also a British veteran.<span> </span>Annie was assigned to <span> </span>stand on a designated London rooftop and when
she saw the enemy bombers, sound the air raid siren and then scramble to safety
herself.<span> </span>Powerful, heart-rending stories
and they continue with past conflicts in the Gulf, Bosnia, Cypress, Iraq,
Afghanistan.<span> <br></span></span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><span><br></span></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">The stories continue in the lives of Neil, Chris,
Stephen, Phillip, and Cole, a few of the military padres with whom I studied in
Cardiff as they returned from tours of duty in Afghanistan.<span> </span>They had already served in Bosnia and
Iraq.<span> </span>We could see how what they had
seen and experienced had changed them but they only ever gave us the barest of
details and a bit of humour e.g. what it was like to fly in a military aircraft
in full gear, wearing a helmet – it felt like one was a bobble head.<span> </span>They spoke of what it was like to conduct Prayers
of Commendation after death and other rituals while bombs were falling around
them.<span> </span>They shared the dilemma they faced
if their driver was shot dead in an ambush.<span>
</span>Did they grab a weapon and shoot to defend themselves because British
and Canadian padres are not supposed to bear arms.<span> <br></span></span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><span><br> </span></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">Silence for many of our veterans, both older and
younger, is the only way to honour the memories and those who have died in war,
both civilian and military.<span> </span>Stephen
Cherry writes:</span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">Silence was the only language that
could somehow do justice to the feeling, the memory, and the imagination.</span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">So silence <em>is </em>the
true language of remembrance. But there are two kinds of silence.</span></span></font></p><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">One is because no one wants to
communicate. This is the frosty, thick, awkward, hostile, silence which is an
outward expression of irreconcilable hostility. ‘She isn’t talking to me
– big time.’ Such silence is a form of shouting. And it is often a prelude to
violence. The guns and bombs begin only after the talking has stopped.</span></span></font></p><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">The other sort of silence is calm
and mutual, it is the recognition that what matters is so much more than we can
ever say that we might as well honour that fact by shutting up for a bit.</span></span></font></p><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">The silence of Armistice Day – the
silence of Remembrance Sunday - is this sort of silence. It is the recognition
that in order to do justice to what has happened, to do justice to the cost of
war – its sacrifice and shame - we do not need to tell another story or sing
another song. Rather we need to be silent together. We need to recognise that sometimes
the most important thing we can do is hold our tongue.</span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">Have you noticed this with war
veterans? The importance thing is not the war stories they tell but the
war stories they <em>don’t</em>
tell: the memories that are unspeakable, the experiences which can’t or
shouldn’t be told.</span></span></font></p><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><span> </span>The memories
and the silence are what stay with us.<span>
</span>In Canada our Remembrance Day parades are silent – there is no clapping
and people are not lined up ten deep.<span>
</span>It’s not a national holiday anymore so most people are at work but we
all observe two minutes silence when everything stops.<span> </span>The one memory I have of my first Remembrance
Sunday here in the UK was in 2009 when Alastair and I spent a two week vacation
here in November of that year.<span> </span>We came
out of Westminster Abbey after the Remembrance Sunday service and heard
clapping, loud clapping and people lining the streets ten deep as soldiers and veterans
marched passed them.<span> </span>It was a powerful
and emotional moment that reached deep into my soul, a recognition of just what
these men and women have sacrificed in the way in body, mind, spirit, friends and
familial relations as they strive to find ways to bring peace to our world, not
just for ourselves but for all people on earth.<span>
</span>Listening to the clapping brought awe, sadness as well as a deep hope
that one day there will be peace.<span> </span>We
pray for peace each and every day because it is a hope that we cannot let go,
even though we know that there will be many more deaths, many more broken and
injured bodies, and many broken hearts, before peace in this world is achieved,
a peace that passes all understanding. <span> </span>I
think that’s what my uncles and my grandfather would have wanted.</span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">How does this relate to us as Christians each
November?<span> </span>How do we honour the silence
and the memories?<span> </span>I leave you with the
words of Stephen Cherry to ponder:</span></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%"><br></span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">We remember not to allow the past
to capture us in its worst moments but to build us up for the future. We
remember not only to honour the fallen, but to raise them in our hearts and to
promise to live lives worthy of their sacrifice.</span></span></font></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">
</span></font><p style="margin:5pt 28.55pt 5pt 36pt;line-height:150%"><font size="2"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="line-height:150%">Jesus knew the power of
remembrance when he took a loaf of bread, blessed it and gave it to his friends
saying, ‘this is my body’ and gave them wine to drink saying, ‘this is my
blood’ ....</span></span></font></p></div></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br>
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