Travelling home from our holiday on Friday 5th November, we noticed that there was a red poppy fixed to every lamp post in the market town of Bawtry. It was a moving sight as we drove through the town and the words “lest we forget” echoed around in my head. Bawtry is by no means the only place making such a statement, travelling through towns and villages and the pumpkins, fake cobwebs and ghoulish displays of the end of October have been replaced with the incredible and imaginative displays. I am of a generation, when my parents had lived through the second world war, indeed, my father lived through the first and second world wars, and so I grew up hearing first-hand accounts of the war years although neither of my parents saw active service. I was once stupid enough to say in a Church service that the world had never faced such dark times, it might have been after the 9/11 bombings and the fears of retaliation. One elderly lady came up to me at the end of the service and said “you don’t know what you’re talking about son, I lived through the blitz, now that was real fear” and I felt humbled by her comments.
Over recent years armistice day seems to have taken on a new life. I remember working for a company at one stage in my career and the practice was to sound an alarm over the tannoy at eleven o’clock on the eleventh of November and everything would stop for two minutes. I remember being in a large shopping centre and an alarm went off signalling the start of the two minutes of silence and everybody stood still as though in a giant game of musical statues and the whole experience was moving. We used to be away on a Church Conference weekend most years for a season in our lives and we would stop at eleven on Remembrance Sunday in the lounge of the hotel in Scarborough and as the two minutes came to its end, we could hear the crack of the maroon being fired in the town marking the end of the period of silence.
There has been so much emphasis on military heroes in recent years as we remember soldiers who have lost their lives in the more recent wars, we constantly hear of those who have suffered with life changing injuries and it is important that we remember. When I was a child, we were influenced by the western movies and would play cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers, running around the playground, shooting one another, all harmless fun. It is shocking that in the modern world and modern Britain, children are dying as a result of knife and gun crimes. It is shocking that children play computer games, where they win by killing others.
Lest we forget, war is evil, the humble red poppy reminds us of a time when the world was at war, there were never any winners, only losers and we should never forget those who bravely fought so that we might live in peace. Given my comments about the cruel world we live in today above, I seriously wonder if we really do live in peace. I believe that it is a central part of the life of the Church to be constantly striving for peace, which means that when we make mistakes, we should always be ready to apologize, and when others make mistakes, we should be ready to forgive. If remembrance day matters, we as a nation, need to be peace lovers and peace makers.
A prayer for this week:
God of love, throughout the generations, tribes and nations have risen up against each other and battles have been fought, forgive us for our anger, for our obsession with power and authority. Help us to be ready to forgive those who have caused us harm and help us to work together for peace in the world. Amen