8 November 2023 A Candle in the Window Peter Millar
Words to encourage us in these times.
Submerging ourselves in this world:
The late and prophetic Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was assassinated because of his commitment to the marginalised, once wrote:
‘I am a shepherd who, with his people, has begun to learn the beautiful and difficult truth: our Christian faith requires that we submerge ourselves in this world.’
An informed anger:
Several years ago, good friend Joy Mead wrote these words related to informed anger. Not all of you may agree with them entirely and certainly it is not an affirmation of the terrorist activities by Hamas but I did want to include it in this week’s Candle.
- People who are angry at injustice are compassionate people: they are filled with passion and they do not make docile citizens: angry people (slaves and free people) forced the end of slavery in the British empire; angry people (women and men) won the vote for women; angry people (black and white) brought an end to apartheid in South Africa. Angry people can change the rules... Compassion enlivens and empowers the heart and mind so that with an informed anger we ask questions.
Iona weaving:
(part of a beautiful poem by Jan Sutch Pickard at a time when all of us weep for Gaza’s destruction and Israel’s unimaginable military response to the loss of 1,400 of its citizens)
How can we comprehend it, God, this beauty and this pain?
How does it hold together?
Is there a pattern or purpose?
How can we comprehend it:
Your beauty and ours – who are made in your image?
Our pain and yours – who chose to share our lives?
We cannot hold it together – but it holds us.
Help us to see pattern and purpose -- and our part in the weaving of the world.
Both Joy’s reflection and Jan’s poem are from “This Is the Day: Readings and meditations from the Iona Community”, Wild Goose Publications ISBN: 978-1-901557-63-3.
A reflection for the National Remembrance Day 2023 in the UK:
(always on the 11th day of November, a day which marks the end of WWI 1914-1918) Peter.
Some years ago, the Worship Group in Carnwadric Parish Church in Glasgow, under the guidance of John Bell of the Iona Communitry, wrote a powerful and visionary hymn (Number 712 in the Church of Scotland Hymnary). Here are some of the powerful, touching words from the hymn written by John:
What shall we pray for those who died,
those on whose death our lives relied?
Silenced by war but not denied,
God give them peace.
I love that line “silenced by war but not denied” for without remembrance all our lives are spiritually impoverished. Without our ability to remember and to reflect on the past, we remain only half-healed in God’s light and love. The past matters greatly, so long as it does not imprison the present. And our shared history, however violent and difficult to understand matters to God. To the heart of God. The God who has wept over war, and still weeps today.
I think it is true to say that not many people are “for war” - but that does not mean we cannot remember all the brave people who have died because of one war or another. And today as we remember all those who as they say “fell in war” we think of all those who are falling today in places of unimaginable violence and pain. For them we also weep, and for the children - war’s victims.
And for me remembrance is also a tender, compassionate act because it belongs to the deepest parts of our soul. We all struggle to comprehend human suffering and human conflict, yet even as we do that we are reminded of the many conflicts within our own hearts and minds and of an inner peace that often fails to be our companion.
On such a day as this, remembrance is therefore at many levels, as we connect our thoughts and prayers to those of many others. At the going down of the sun we shall not forget them for if we do so we diminish ourselves and our communities. And with the good folk of Carnwadric we can also say and sing –
God give us peace and, more than this,
Show us the path where justice is;
And let us never be remiss
Working for peace that lasts.
In every act of remembrance, these two realities are held as one. The prayer for those who have perished and the prayer for a global peace embedded in lasting and genuine justice. And today as we look round our world, surely that interlocked prayer is not for one day in the year but for each new day. In essence it is prayer of the heart for the healing of the nations.
*Lord of justice and peace look with mercy upon your warring peoples.
