Remembrance Day 2018

In the lead up to Remembrance Day, people from around the villages knitted and crocheted poppies. There were used to make a display marking the Centenary of the end of WW1. Some of the fruit of our labours can be seen in these photos, which were take after worship.
Thanks to everyone involved in creating the display.

Following the pattern of these centenary years,
as we moved toward our Act of Remembrance, this year we reflected the events of 1918 and thought of the act of remembrance itself, through the following poems:

Roderick Watson Kerr
1893 - 1960
w. March 1918, German Spring Offensive:
From the line
Born in Edinburgh, Kerr served as a Lieutenant in the 2nd Royal Tank Corps. he was wounded, and won the Militry Cross  during the German Spring Offensive. Surviving the war, he worked as a journalist at the Scotsman, and for the Liverpool Daily Post...

The 'Teddy' window:
representing families affected by war -
sons lost, or fathers. And also those innocents
caught up in the conflict, who lived in towns
and villages where fighting took place.
The poppy buttons are very tiny teddies...

John Munro
1889 - d. April, 1918, German Spring Offensive:
Our heroes who fell in battle
John Munro was born in Lewis, and educated there and at Aberdeen University. Munro volunteered at the outbreak of the War, serving in the ranks of the 4th Seaforth Highlanders before being commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1916. He, like Kerr, won the Military Cross. However, unlike Kerr, Munro was killed in April 1918 during the German Spring Offensive.
He primarily wrote in Gaelic

Wilfred Owen
1893 - d. 4/11/1918
Anthem for doomed youth
One of the most famous of the soldier-poets was Wilfrid Owen. Owen was born in Oswestry on the Welsh Border. Living in France and working as a tutor at the outbreak of the war, Owen arrived in the trenches of the Western Front in the bitter January of 1917, acting as a Second Lieutenant. Almost immediately he was thrown into heavy fighting. He was hospitalised in May, and later sent to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, suffering from shell shock. He composed nearly all of his poems within the space of a year while convalescing, from August 1917 to September 1918, when he returned to France and to the war. He won the Military Cross, and died just a week before the peace, on the 4th of November.

Marion Angus
1865-1946
Remembrance Day 
Marion Angus was born in Sunderland, of Scottish parents, and spent her formative years in Arbroath. Before the War, she ran a private school. During the war, she joined in the war effort by working in the canteen at Stobbs Camp.

Rounding off these readings, as is our usual practice, we heard In Flanders Fields by John McCrae.

After the Act of Remembrance, we continued our time of worship.
Below are the bible readings for the day, with the sermon.

Bible readings:
Numbers 1:4, 45-54; John 15:9-17

Sermon:
May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts,
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen

It was a different world.
It was the age of Empire
and the age of innocence;
a time long-ago and not far from living memory.
It was golden summers on chamomile lawns,
and the dark grime of progress and industry.
A time of prosperity and plenty,
yet a time of unthinkable poverty.
There was hope in the air,
good neighbourliness and kindness,
a twinkle in the nation’s eye.
The knowing sense of being great and powerful.

In that time long-ago, in a far-away land,
another great empire held sway over many countries,
some who chafed at the bit,
who resented being ruled by the Emperor.
The resentment festered,
until, at an opportune time –
all because of a wrong car turn –
a shot rang out,
killing the heir of the Empire, and his wife.
Interlocked within a complex system of alliances,
the Empires and nations moved swiftly.
Five weeks later, Britain was at war –
defending ‘little Belgium’ from the Germans.

Some were already soldiers;
some joined up, eager for adventure;
others joined simply seeking work and a wage.
Patriotism mingled with new songs –
and surely, surely, this would all be over by Christmas?
Why not see a bit of Europe and have a jolly time of it?
Pack up that old kit bag:
smile...
smile...
smile.
And so, from all over Great Britain,
and across the Empire,
they gathered,
were counted,
formed fighting units.
This was war on a scale none had seen:
truly, a world war –
so many nations involved.
A war with a grand purpose:
this would be the ‘war to end all wars.’
Surely, a worthy aim –
something to be proud of, to be able to tell your children –
or, of families sending sons, to be able to have a quiet pride, and tell the neighbours.
In one’s, and two’s
and ten’s and hundreds,
and thousands upon thousands,
off they went to war.

War is a numbers game:
the more people you have at your disposal,
in theory, the more advantage you have.
And this was very much a war of numbers –
a war of attrition,
as both sides began to get bogged down in
the mud, and the blood, and the wire of trench warfare.
And as reality began to set in,
and as men poured out of trenches
in the face of machine guns,
and their life-blood poured out of them,
the counting began again in earnest  –
not just the counting of how many new recruits,
but a darker, grimmer counting:
the sheer human cost of war fought on an industrial scale.
Not one, but four Christmases came and went,
and another was looming,
before that great, terrible conflict came to an end.
Number of deaths: about 10 million fighting,
and around 7 million civilians caught in the middle of it all.
Number of wounded: over 20 million.
If it truly had been an age of innocence before the war,
innocence, along with human lives, had been thoroughly broken.

From the perspective of hindsight and long history,
sometimes it’s easy to wonder at the seeming naivete of those who went to fight.
But, for all who did, in the great and terrible darkness of war –
on land, in the air, or by sea –
in the horror of it were formed bonds of friendship and care.
Of course, some looked out for themselves;
but how many stories have been passed on of acts of enormous courage:
of scrambling through wire and under fire
to bring back wounded comrades?
Of men like Wilfrid Owen –
diligent, to the last, in his duty of care for his men –
determined to get them ‘home’ to safety after seeing action...
losing his life in the final week of the war;
men like Laurence Binyon who wrote the poem containing the stanza
‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.’
Not a soldier – too old – and so, he volunteered instead,
in the Red Cross on the Western Front –
putting his life on the line
to help patch up the lives of those on the Front line.
In the darkness of war, still, there was love:
the greater love that Jesus speaks of,
that dares to offer up your life in the service of others.

One hundred years has passed since that ‘war to end all wars’.
It was a grand ideal –
the very thought of no more war.
And yet, counting numbers again:
since then, over 160 million people –
those in the forces, and ordinary men, women, and children –
have died in wars.
Such numbers are incomprehensible.
Perhaps a way of trying to understand is to focus in on individual lives instead –
Kerr, Munro, Owen, Binyon, and others...
to hear their stories, and maybe learn from that more focused viewpoint,
something of the whole?

Over the last several weeks, we’ve looked at the story of Joseph and his family,
and as we’ve done so, we’ve touched on thoughts of reconciliation:
of mending fences,
of healing broken relationships.
Reconciliation and love were at the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry –
it’s the gospel message.
Our text from John sees Jesus once again addressing these themes:
reminding his followers – and us – of the bonds of love:
of God’s love for us –
of that love being the springboard for us to love God, and to love others –
to remain in God’s love.
That is the love the inspires us to small and great acts in the care of others –
it’s even a love that dares us move beyond seeing some as ‘enemies’
and instead, seeing all as made in God’s image:
precious and beloved.
And perhaps, it’s as we look deep into the face of another, even an enemy,
and can see God,
that is when we can put down the guns,
to turn our spears into pruning hooks,
and find a way forward together to that place of peace,
where there is felt no need of war...
to be reconciled to each other,
just as God, in love, through Jesus, was reconciled to us all. Amen.

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Finally, in line with many other churches throughout the UK,
at 12.30pm our church bells were rung...

Around the parish, other Acts of Remembrance occurred at the Memorials in
Wanlockhead, Leadhills, Crawford, and Crawfordjohn