As we prepare for Remembrance this weekend, I find myself, unusually, treading on eggshells, trying to strike some kind of balance that will, hopefully, satisfy folks who come from many different perspectives, wanting to hear something that will help them to a place of remembrance. From the octogenarian veteran to the young teenage pacifist. Like Wilfred Owen, the World War 1 poet, killed as armistice bells tolled, I want to preach the pity of war."My subject is war and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity"
For me, no war can ever be a just war. But it is only as we honour the fallen and revere the courage of those who gave their lives as well as pledging ourselves to assist those forever scarred mentally and physically by war, it's only then that we can have any hope of finding the path to peace. No matter how much we condemn war, to practice mercy and compassion, to do justice requires that we care for all those, military AND civilian caught up in war and in the pity of war.
Thank you for putting voice to my struggle liz, I have two services to prepare for Sunday on the theme of remembrance, and like you struggle to see how war can ever be just.
ReplyDeletethis is is inspiring!
ReplyDeleteCome and preach to my lot. I got it badly wrong two years ago and wade through moutains of eggshells now.
ReplyDeleteI have had to move the timing of our church service and then do an almost repeat at the war memorial half an hour later to try and satisfy two sets of people but especially those who refuse to step over the boundary of church. Don't know what they are scared of really.