Today’s Lent reading, squeezed in between much Holy Week preparation, was a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye from 19 Varieties of Gazelle.
Red Brocade
The Arabs used to say, when a stranger appears at your door, feed him for three days before asking him who he is, where he’s come from, where he’s headed. That way he’ll have the strength enough to answer. Or, by then you’ll be such good friends you don’t care.
Let’s go back to that. Rice? Pine nuts? Here, take my red brocade pillow. My child will serve water to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came! I was not preparing to be busy. That’s the armour everyone put on to pretend they had a purpose in the world.
I refuse to be claimed. Your plate is waiting. We will snip fresh mint into your tea.
Cats have been on my mind this past weekend. A friend whose cat died recently mourns her loss. Another friend is moving house and her cats are anxiously sitting in the packing boxes. And Rita Kitten decided my lap was the best place to be yesterday afternoon until my legs went numb.
Imagine my delight, then, when today’s Lent reading took me to Janet Morley’s book ‘the heart’s time’ and this poem by DH Lawrence.
Pax
All that matters is to be at one with the living God to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.
Like a cat asleep on a chair at peace, in peace and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress, at home, at home in the house of the living, sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.
Sleeping on the hearth of the living world yawning at home before the fire of life feeling the presence of the living God like a great reassurance a deep calm in the heart a presence as of the master sitting at the board in his own and greater being, in the house of life.
Morley goes on to talk about the ‘profound relaxation of the cat before the hearth’ being about contemplation and being fully present in the presence of God and of the present moment. ‘To anyone who has watched a cat extend its whole body in ecstatic sleep, exposing the fur of its impossibly long belly to the warmth of an open fire, the image is compelling. It is the antithesis of any sort of hunched-up fearful prayer; rather the animal arches itself to experience the greatest possible pleasure from the presence of the fire. It may not understand what causes the warmth it enjoys, but it intends to receive maximum advantage from this source of life.’
I look at Rita Kitten now, curled up not stretched out, and envy her peacefulness. She has no To-Do list. No worries or concerns about phone calls to be made. No emails to answer, no preparations to be made for this or that… She twitches an ear towards the sound of children playing outside and decides she can’t be bothered going to hiss at them through the window. Better to just stay cosy and be. Food will come, she is sure of it.
Dear Margaret, my deliciously eccentric organist, passed on some Lenten reading to me after a conversation about our shared love of Timothy Radcliffe. There were some worthy Lenten books in there but the ones which really caught my eye were two little books both called The Minister’s Cat. One is full of delightful Scottish words like ‘bogshaivelt’ = knocked out of shape, and ‘kirkie’ = enthusiastically devoted to church affairs. The other is full of gorgeous poetry about cats.
The Minister’s Cat is…
…AN OMNIPRESENT CAT
Obadiah’s on the sofa;
Obadiah’s on the chair.
No, he isn’t there in person;
But they’re covered in his hair.
Obadiah’s on the carpet;
Obadiah’s on the mat.
He’s perpetually moulting,
That infuriating cat.
Obadiah’s on my sweaters;
Obadiah’s on my suit.
When I’m going out on business,
I could kill the little brute.
Obadiah’s on the bedspread;
On the pillow as I sleep.
If he doesn’t keep his hair on,
I shall shear him like a sheep.
I’ve been asking Obadiah,
As he grudges me his purr,
In the name of all that’s feline,
Why he’s prodigal with fur.
Obadiah, to his credit,
Has a reason for the hair:
He’s afraid he’ll be forgotten
Any time he isn’t there.
It’s a token of his presence,
When he’s temporar’ly gone;
And a comforting assurance
That his mem’ry lingers on.
Every priest needs to nourish their own heart. Sadly, this is something that some of us are not good at doing. And we can be even worse at nourishing one another. I mean, if we don’t manage to look after ourselves, how can we make time to look after one another? We concentrate all our time, energy and prayers on our little flocks that we leave little time for caring for anyone else, including ourselves.
One of the ways we can do that is in Continuing Ministerial Development and most years I head south to Englandshire for a Clergy Consultation in St George’s House in Windsor. It all began when +Brian suggested I might benefit from attending a Consultation when I was looking for some more study. I’d thought about doing the MTh but couldn’t find the time for it, so doing a summer school or annual chunk of study seemed perfect. Over the years I’ve really enjoyed the courses in Windsor and benefited from meeting other clergy from around the UK.
This year the title was Nourishing the Pastoral Heart and was all about how we, as clergy, care for ourselves. The weather didn’t care much for us, it has to be said. with wind and rain featuring heavily. Much like home really. I had a good, fun home group in which to go over the talks we’d heard. We also shared stories of pastoral encounters which had stayed with us and offered advice and support when we could. We vowed to take days off every week, knowing that we probably won’t but know, without doubt, how important they are. (And not to be used for visiting sick parents either.) Although how my clergy friends with umpteen parishes manage, I don’t know.
One of the most wonderful bits about going to Windsor, for me, is taking part in the daily worship in St George’s. Yes, some of it is alien to me (all male choirs, evensnog in which we only get to say the Creed, and a slightly different liturgy – just different enough to make you think it is the same but then it trips you up) but then, as I’ve been over the years I have come to really enjoy it. Yes, I don’t get to say a thing at Evensnog but what a treat to sit so close to a wonderful choir and soak up the music. This year the morning Eucharist was moved out of the chantry chapel with my favourite little unicorn but it was a bit of a squash and having it in the nave meant glorious views of the west window and who can resist gazing up to beautiful fan vaulting? It is all terribly macho of course. Let’s hope the next Canon is of the womanly variety.
The food is glorious, the afternoon cakes divine, the wine much appreciated, and we were always cared for by the staff. (Thank you to the lovely lady who stood waiting for me to appear for breakfast with a mug in her hand to present to me, so that I didn’t have to cope with the breakfast china tea cups and saucers!) And then there is my dear friend Canon James who provided humour and love in equal measures.
The Dean tried, yet again, to convert me to a love of poetry and almost succeeded. Although I still think that when I’m feeling low I will not rush to some sad poetry to help me sit with the pain but will phone a friend instead.
I came home, tired but refreshed, and promising to try and care for myself more.
I don’t really do poetry. I don’t get it. Well, most of it anyway. Poetry involves hard work and I’m a pretty instant kind of person. Instant food and instant gratification and instant feel good, that’s me. The problem is that lots of clergy love poetry. They read it, they quote from it, they preach it. And sometimes, dare I say it, there’s a wee bit of snobbery around poetry too. The more elusive the poem, the better it seems to be. But if I don’t get it immediately on first reading then I move on.
Mind you, I have been known to pen a wee ditty or two in my time. Not that I’d call them poems though. Just thoughts or ramblings or rantings even. But I mostly keep them to myself or pass them off as ‘meditations’. Meditations cover a multitude of sins.
However, there are some poets I quite like. Carol Ann Duffy, for one. I get her. Or maybe I don’t but think I do. You see, that’s the problem with poetry. You think you get it and then someone unpacks layers of meaning that you completely missed first time round. Maya Angelou – I love her stuff. And I’ve recently discovered Malcolm Guite and Ann Lewin. I also love Matthew Fitt and Maureen Sangster who write in Scots vernacular and make me smile.
So I’ve had a look through my Quotes Journals and here are a few of my favourite poems for National Poetry Day:
God Says Yes To Me by Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
I love that poem! Love Love Love.
Ain’t I a Woman by Erlene Stetson
That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles
or gives me the best place…
And ain’t I a woman?
Look at me
Look at my arm!
I have ploughed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me…
and ain’t I a woman?
I could work as much
and eat as much as a man –
when I could get to it –
and bear the lashes as well
and ain’t I a woman?
I have borne thirteen children
and seen most sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother’s grief
none but Jesus heard me…
and ain’t I a woman?
that little man in black there say
a woman can’t have as much rights as a man
’cause Christ wasn’t a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
rightside up again.
Perhaps poetry needs to be about the right topic to interest me? Hmm.
Waste by the Rev’d Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (Woodbine Willie)
Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious Years,
Waste of ways the Saint’s have trod,
Waste of Glory, waste of God, –
War!
I do like some of the war poets and this one is just so succinct and kept coming back to me on my recent trip to Normandy.
The Hymn of a Fat Woman by Joyce Huff
All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words ‘deity’and ‘diet’ must have come from the same
Latin root.
Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.
Hard
as pewseats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.
They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.
Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.
I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.
No surprises with that one then.
Please Bury Me In The Library by J Patrick Lewis
Please bury me in the library
In the clean, well-lighted stacks
of Novels, History, Poetry,
right next to the Paperbacks
where the Kid’s Books dance
with True Romance
and the Dictionary dozes.
Please bury me in the library
with a dozen long-stemmed roses.
way back by a rack of Magazines,
I won’t be sad too often
if they bury me in the library
with Book worms in my coffin.
Just delightful!
Blame The Vicar by John Betjeman
When things go wrong it’s rather tame
to find we are ourselves to blame,
it gets the trouble over quicker
to go and blame things on the Vicar.
The Vicar, after all, is paid
to keep us bright and undismayed.
For what’s a Vicar really for
except to cheer us up, What’s more,
he shouldn’t ever, ever tell
if there is such a place as Hell,
for if there is it’s certain he
will go to it as well as we.
My party piece on more than one occasion.
The Late Bride by Veronica Zundel
And so she finally
after all those years
opened the box.
And out flew
nothing.
And was that all, she cried
there was in it?
Then why did I dream and yearn
scrabble and fight so long
to get my hands on it?
That was at first
it was only later she learnt,
slowly, so slowly
to fill the box with
the treasures she had
unknowing, owned all along.
Just lovely.
So there we have it, some of my favourite poems for National Poetry Day. Want to convert me? Send me your favourite then!
A few weeks ago I was watching the television programmes about the commemoration of WW1. For some reason the Stations of the Cross came into my mind and I could see how many themes there were which paralleled what I was watching. I then started to write my reflections of the war around the theme of the Stations of the Cross – I’ve called them Stations of War.
Tonight we will walk the Stations of War. There will be some stops to listen to a piece of music, and there will be some poetry and prose. I hope they speak to you.
To begin with we will listen to a piece of music by Vaughan Williams called The Lark Ascending. I have always loved this piece and wasn’t aware until recently that it was written in 1914,
‘just as Europe was teetering on the edge of the abyss of the First World War… It evokes a tranquil time when Britain was riding high, having mastered the secrets of the Industrial Revolution, and memories of Queen Victoria’s sixty-four-reign were still fresh. Yet whole countries were now sleep-walking into a conflict that would wipe out a generation.’
Frank Gardner, Only Remembered, Ed Michael Morpurgo (Jonathan Cape, 2014)
The story goes that as he scribbled notes for the music while on holiday in Margate, someone mistook him for a German spy and he was arrested.
Let’s listen to it now as we think back to an innocent era just before the War to end all Wars began…
MUSIC – The Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams) 16.08
STATION 1 – JESUS IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH
As we contemplate Jesus standing there, wearing a crown of thorns and the scarlet cloak, the crowd cried out “Crucify him!” How many young men were condemned to death fighting in a war, not of their own making? How many teenagers, caught up in the propaganda, caught up in the desire to escape their own poor situations to go off and seek glory? How many fathers were condemned never to see their wives and children again? They went, believing it would all be over in a month or so. They went, while politicians sat in boardrooms and played with their lives. Your Country Needs You said Kitchener. God is on our side. Condemned to death. Condemned to a miserable existence of suffering and misery.
The General
‘Good morning; good morning!’ the General said when we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead, and we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine. ‘He’s a cheery old care,’ grunted Harry to Jack as they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack. (Siegfried Sassoon)
We pray for all those condemned to death. For the innocent, the unjustly accused, the unjustly condemned. Pray for all who are condemned.
STATION 2 – JESUS TAKES UP HIS CROSS
As we contemplate Jesus led to the Place of the Skull (Golgotha) he is forced to carry his own cross.
On their backs our soldiers carried all they would need to exist. Their kit and clothes, their food and drink, their shelter and weapons. 60lbs of solid weight. It weighed them down and made marching unbearable after a few miles. Young skinny, underfed men carried their burden on their backs. Heavy weighted burdens supposed to keep them alive. ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag’, they sang with stiff upper lip. ‘Smile, boys, that’s the style.’
And the rain and the mud made them heavier still. Smiling was the last thing on their mind.
from NIGHT MARCH by ROBERT GRAVES
Evening: beneath tall poplar trees We soldiers eat and smoke and sprawl, Write letters home, enjoy our ease, When suddenly comes a ringing call.
‘Fall in!’ A stir, and up we jump, Fold the love letter, drain the cup, We toss away the Woodbine stump, Snatch at the pack and jerk it up.
Soon with a roaring song we start, Clattering along a cobbled road, The foot beats quickly like the heart, And shoulders laugh beneath their load.
Where are we marching? No one knows, Why are we marching? No one cares. For every man follows his nose, Towards the gay West where sunset flares.
An hour’s march: we halt: forward again, Wheeling down a small road through trees. Curses and stumbling: puddled rain Shines dimly, splashes feet and knees.
Silence, disquiet: from those trees Far off a spirit of evil howls. ‘Down to the Somme’ wail the banshees With the long mournful voice of owls…
Our comrades who at Festubert And Loos and Ypres lost their lives, In dawn attacks, in noonday glare, On dark patrols from sudden knives.
Like us they carry packs, they march In fours, they sling their rifles too, But long ago they’ve passed the arch Of death where we must yet pass through.
Seven miles: we halt awhile, then on! I curse beneath my burdening pack Like Sinbad when with sigh and groan He bore the old man on his back.
A big moon shines across the road, Ten miles: we halt: now on again Drowsily marching; the sharp goad Blunts to a dumb and sullen pain.
A man falls out: we others go Ungrudging on, but our quick pace Full of hope once, grows dull, and slow: No talk: nowhere a smiling face…
We win the fifteenth mile by strength ‘Halt!’ the men fall, and where they fall, Sleep. ‘On!’ the road uncoils its length; Hamlets and towns we pass them all.
False dawn declares night nearly gone: We win the twentieth mile by theft. We’re charmed together, hounded on, By the strong beat of left, right, left.
Pale skies and hunger: drizzled rain: The men with stout hearts help the weak, Add a new rifle to their pain Of shoulder, stride on, never speak.
Now at the top of a rounded hill We see brick buildings and church spires. Nearer they loom and nearer, till We know the billet of our desires.
Here the march ends, somehow we know. The step quickens, the rifles rise To attention: up the hill we go Shamming new vigour for French eyes.
So now most cheerily we step down The street, scarcely withholding tears Of weariness: so stir the town With all the triumph of Fusiliers.
Breakfast to cook, billets to find, Scrub up and wash (down comes the rain), And the dark thought in every mind ‘To-night they’ll march us on again.
We pray for all who lived, even now, under the yoke of persecution. For those in prison camps, for those doing hard labour. Pray for all who are weighed down.
STATION 3 – JESUS FALLS FOR THE FIRST TIME
As we contemplate Jesus falling under the weight of the cross, we wonder how he can go on.
from For the Fallen
They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe.
(Robert Laurence Binyon)
They fell. These young men fell as easily as petals from a summer rose. They fell on the first day of war and on the last. They fell in mud, on grass, in No-man’s Land and some never to be found again.
“On your feet!” shouted the sergeant. “On your feet! No stragglers! No malingerers! Soon as I blow my whistle, we’re going over the top. On your feet or it’ll be a Court Martial for anyone who stays. On your feet or it’s the Firing Squad.”
Slowly they got to their feet, took a drag on a cigarette, a silent prayer. It would be death either way.
We pray for all who fall. For those who are injured in body, mind and spirit. Pray for all who suffer.
MUSIC – No Man’s Land (The Green Fields of France), words by Eric Bogle, sung by June Tabor 7.38
STATION 4 – JESUS MEETS HIS MOTHER
As we contemplate Jesus meeting his mother on the road we hear those words “A sword will pierce your soul”.
What of the mothers left behind? Mothers who said goodbye to their babies, their brave young babies, some barely men? Mothers who wrote with news of home and waited in dread and fear for the telegram or the knock at the door. Mothers who poured over newspapers and every small letter from sons who couldn’t tell the horrors they saw. Mothers who wanted to hold and protect their young from all that would endanger them, but had to let them go. Wives and mothers bringing up babies on their own, forced to work to provide for them, fearing the worst.
I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier (song)
Ten million soldiers to the war have gone, who may never return again. Ten million mothers’ hearts must break for the ones who died in vain. Head bowed down in sorrow in her lonely years, I heard a mother murmur thru’ her tears:
I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier, I brought him up to be my pride and joy. Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder, to shoot some other mother’s darling boy? Let nations arbitrate their future troubles, it’s time to lay the sword and gun away. There’d be no war today, if mothers all would say, ‘I didn’t raise my body to be a soldier.’
What victory can cheer a mother’s heart, when she looks at her blighted home? What victory can bring her back all she cared to call her own? Let each mother answer in the years to be, Remember that my boy belongs to me!
(Lyrics by Alfred Bryan; music by Al Piantadosi)
We pray for all women who wait. For all children suffering from hardship and neglect. For all the tears shed. Pray for all who weep.
STATION 5 – SIMON OF CYRENE HELPS JESUS TO CARRY HIS CROSS
As we contemplate Simon, a passer-by who had come in from the country, forced to help carry Jesus’ cross we see a man sharing the load of another.
And what of those acts of heroism? Of brothers in arms sacrificing their own lives for their comrades. The orderlies who ran out to carry back the wounded from where they fell. Who risked their own lives to care for others, to help carry their load. They watched out for one another, those men in the muddy trenches, passed cigarettes around, told stories to keep away the bogeyman. They joined up as pals and died as pals. ¾ million signed up as Pals Regiments, loyal to one another. Whole streets, villages, towns lost all their men because of this. Nobody ever encouraged Pals Regiments again.
From All Quiet on the Western Front
I am fighting a crazy, confused battle. I want to get out of my hollow in the ground and I keep on slipping back in; I say to myself, ‘You’ve got to, it’s to do with your mates, not some stupid order,’ and straight after that: ‘So what? I’ve only got one life to lose.’
Suddenly a surprising warmth comes over me. Those voices, those few soft words, those footsteps in the trench behind me tear me with a jolt away from the terrible feeling of isolation that goes with the fear of death, to which I nearly succumbed. Those voices mean more than my life, more than mothering and fear, they are the strongest and most protective thing that there is: they are the voices of my pals.
I’m no longer a shivering scrap of humanity alone in the dark – I belong to them and they to me, we all share the same fear and the same life, and we are bound to each other in a strong and simple way. I want to press my face into them, those voices, those few words that saved me, and which will be my support.
(Erich Maria Remarque)
We pray for all people of good will who help others. For those who give their time, their riches, their strength in the service of the poor. Pray for all who care.
STATION 6 – VERONICA WIPES THE FACE OF JESUS
As we contemplate Veronica, stepping out from the crowd, rushing forward to wipe the face of Jesus we give thanks for the imprint left on her cloth and in her heart.
There were many Veronicas in that war. Women who left the security they knew to go and work in field hospitals and tend the wounded. 38,000 Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs), semi-trained nurses, left comfortable family homes to tend to the wounded and dying. Empowered in this new and horrible world, they faced sights they had never dreamt of. Gangrene, infection, missing limbs, night terrors, and death became their daily lives. Shell shock (‘no heart for the fight’) left them with dreams too horrible to bear. Nightmares that no amount of hand-holding would cure. No more the social whirl, no more the simple life – death and destruction, the smell of rotting flesh and putrid blood, the coughing that never stopped. That was the life of service for others. Writing letters at the side of a man who’d lost his sight, holding hands long into the night.
From Not So Quiet (a novel)
Cleaning an ambulance is the foulest and most disgusting job it is possible to imagine. We are unanimous on that point. Even yet we hardened old-timers cannot imagine it without ‘catting’ on exceptionally bad mornings. We do not mind cleaning the engines, doing repairs and keeping the outsides presentable – it is dealing with the insides we hate.
The stench that comes out as we open the doors each morning nearly knocks us down. Pools of stale vomit from the poor wretches we have carried the night before, corners the sitters have turned into temporary lavatories for all purposes, blood and mud and vermin and the stale stench of stinking trench feet and gangrenous wounds. Poor souls, they cannot help it. No one blames them. Half the time they are unconscious of what they are doing, wracked with pain and jolted about on the rough roads, for, try as we may – and the cases all agree that women drivers are ten times more thoughtful than the men drivers – we cannot altogether evade the snow-covered stones and potholes.
How we dread the morning clean-out of the insides of our cars, we gently-bred, educated women they insist on so rigidly for this work that apparently cannot be done by women incapable of speaking English with a public-school accent!
‘Our ambulance women take entire control of their cars, doing all running repairs and all cleaning.’
This appeared in a signed article by one of our head officials in London, forwarded to me by Mother last week. It was entitled ‘Our Splendid Women’. I wondered then how many people comfortably reading it over the breakfast table realized what that ‘all cleaning’ entailed. None, I should imagine; much less the writer of the muck. Certainly we ourselves had no idea before we got there.
I wonder afresh as I don my overalls and rubber boots. I wonder what to expect this morning, remembering that poor wretched soul I carried on my last trek to Number Thirteen, who will be buried by one of us today.
I am nearly sick on the spot at the sight greeting me, but I have no time for squeamishness. I have Commandant’s bus in addition to my own to get through.
The snow is coming down pretty heavily now, the waterproof sheet over my bonnet is full, and the red cross over the front of the driving seat totally obscured by a white pall. Blue-nosed, blue-overalled drivers in knee-high waterproof boots are diligently carrying buckets of water and getting out cloths in readiness for the great attack. The smell of disinfectant is everywhere. No one speaks much. It is a wretched morning and the less one talks the sooner one will be out of these whirling flakes.
(Helen Zenna Smith, Not so Quiet, in Only Remembered, ibid (page 59-60)
We pray for those disfigured by war and those who care for them. For friendly faces and a caring touch in the face of adversity. Pray for all who nurse.
MUSIC – Tallis, Salvator Mundi 3.59
STATION 7 – JESUS FALLS A SECOND TIME
As we contemplate Jesus in those narrow streets teeming with people, stumble and fall a second time we wonder if he can go on.
from Armistice Day 1918 – Robert Graves
But the boys who were killed in the trenches, Who fought with no rage and no rant, We left them stretched out on their pallets of mud Low down with the worm and the ant.
Stretched out on their pallets of mud. They fell and they lay face down in the mud. Deep in the dugouts, they lay still trying not to whimper with pain. Old lags, young fresh recruits lying while whizzbangs flew overhead. Too tired to get up again, too weary of the horror they’d never imagined when they signed up that glorious day. They fell and they lay with the rats and the worms. No glory now, lads. No glory now.
We pray for those who fell, innocent of any crime. For those who still lie there, row upon row, some known and many known to God alone. Pray for all who fall.
STATION 8 – JESUS MEETS THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM
As we contemplate the women beating their breasts and mourning over Jesus, we marvel at his words: ‘Don’t cry for me, cry for yourselves and your children.’
The women cried and cried, they wept until rivers ran with their tears. They cried for their lost ones, for the brief but intense relationships, for what might have been. A million men were missing from their lives, men these women never had a chance to meet
Aunties
When I was a child, there were always lots of Aunties. They were everywhere.
Some were real aunties – Mum’s umpteen sisters, Dad’s umpteen sisters. There was no end of them.
Auntie Flo, Auntie Betty, Auntie Edie, Auntie Marjorie, Auntie Bertha, Auntie Jessie… the list is endless.
I won’t go on, except for Auntie Violet, my favourite auntie, killed on a bus in the Blitz.
It seemed quite natural, didn’t give it a thought. That was the way the world was – lots of old ladies everywhere.
There were called spinsters. Some were rather quaint. And looked down upon. A few were slightly mad.
Then, one day, when I was grown up, it dawned on me –
First World War
A million men were missing. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Then men these women never met, never even had the chance to meet.
All dead
These ladies were always kind, gentle and loving to me. Not sour, bitter and resentful, as they had every right to be.
A million missing men. A million aunties.
(Raymond Briggs, ibid (page 240-241)
We pray for those women who lost their loves, their hopes, their dreams, their futures. For children left without fathers. Pray for all who were left behind.
STATION 9 – JESUS FALLS FOR THE THIRD TIME
As we contemplate Jesus lying in the dusty road under the cross, we imagine the humility and the insults he bore.
from Robert Graves – It’s a Queer Time
You’re charging madly at them yelling ‘Fag!’ When somehow something gives and your feet drag. You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain And find…you’re digging tunnels through the hay In the Big Barn, ’cause it’s a rainy day. Oh springy hay, and lovely beams to climb! You’re back in the old sailor suit again. It’s a queer time.
In Belgium there’s a Peace Pool, man-made from a bomb crater. The water is still, the reeds blow in the breeze, frogs croak and it seems so peaceful indeed. Until you remember that this is where they fell, fell to the sound of silence as the bomb took away their hearing.
Day and night the shells fell. Dugouts crumbled. Digging became a way of life. Digging friends out, some suffocated, some smashed to pulp. The noise of the shells grew into a great crescendo. In a flash of time they threw themselves down into the mud and cringed at the bottom of the crater. Red-hot jagged pieces of iron fell around them.
A second or two later they’d laugh, roar with laughter. Laugh because this time your name wasn’t on it.
We pray for those who suffer humiliation from others. For all who fall daily because of disability and disease. Pray for all who live with pain.
MUSIC – O Sacred Head Now Wounded (Passion Chorale) – J S Bach 3.03
STATION 10 – JESUS IS STRIPPED OF HIS GARMENTS
As we contemplate the soldiers taking his garments and casting lots for them, we imagine what it was like to be so vulnerable and helpless.
For some, their army uniform was the first suit they’d had. How proud they were, marching through their home towns with crowds cheering. Proud of wearing this badge of honour, to be a soldier fighting for King and Country. In time those clothes became something much less glamourous, stained and filthy, burned by shrapnel, seams crawling with lice, socks rotting in boots. A far cry from that seamless garment worn by Christ.
But as death approached and they lay in a field hospital, clothes torn away, sometimes taking flesh with it, the result was the same. Vulnerability without that badge of honour, going out of this world as they came in. Naked as a newborn babe.
From Testament of Youth
I had arrived at the cottage that morning to find [Roland’s] mother and sister standing in helpless distress in the midst of his returned kit, which was lying, just opened, all over the floor. The garments sent back included the outfit he had been wearing when he was hit. I wondered, and I wonder still, why it was thought necessary to return such relics – the tunic torn back and front by the bullet, a khaki vest dark and stiff with blood, and a pair of blood-stained breeches slit open at the top by someone obviously in a violent hurry. Those gruesome rags made me realize, as I had never realized before, all that France really meant. Eighteen months afterwards the smell of Etaples village, though fainter and more diffused, brought back to me the memory of those poor remnants of patriotism.
‘Everything,’ I wrote later to [my brother] Edward, ‘was damp and worn and simply caked in mud. And I was glad that neither you nor Victor nor anyone who may some day go to the front was there to see. If you had been, you would have been overwhelmed by the horror of war without its glory. For though he had only won the things when living, the smell of those clothes was the smell of graveyards and the Dead. The mud of France which cover them was not ordinary mud; it had not the usual clean pure smell of earth, but it was as though it was saturated with dead bodies – dead that had been dead a long, long time… There was his cap, bent in and shapeless out of recognition – the soft cap he wore rakishly on the back of his head – with the badge thickly coated with mud. He must have fallen on top of it, or perhaps one of those people who fetched him in trampled on it.’
Vera Brittain
We pray for those who have nothing, whose possessions are few. For all who do not appreciate what they have. Pray for all who live in poverty.
STATION 11 – JESUS IS NAILED TO THE CROSS
As we contemplate Jesus being offered a draught of wine mixed with gall, we hear those words ‘Father, forgive them: they do not know what it is they are doing.’
They practiced with bayonets fixed to rifles running at sandbags. ‘Imagine it’s the Hun,’ they were told. But when the whistle blew to go over the top, would they be able to look a man in the eye and kill him? The tot of rum gave them courage but it soon wore off. What happens when they were faced with someone else’s son, brother, father?
Father forgive them: they do not know what it is they are doing.
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, till on the haunting flares we turned our backs and towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots but limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; but someone still was yelling out and stumbling, and flound’ring like a man in fire or lime… Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, as under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace behind the wagon that we flung him in, and watch the white eyes writhing in his face, his hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; if you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sore on innocent tongues, – my friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
We pray for all victims of war, for men, women and children. For the innocent casualties and for the work of the Red Cross. Pray for all who are tortured.
STATION 12 – JESUS DIES ON THE CROSS
As we contemplate darkness over all the world we hear Jesus cry out ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Then he bowed his head and yielded up his spirit.
Poison gas killed 200,000 men. It was a horrible, horrible death. 1 million killed or injured in the Battle of the Somme. ‘The artillery will have killed most of them,’ they were told. ‘You’ll be able to just stroll over and finish them off.’ And they lay dying in No Man’s Land waiting for a friend to finish them off. ‘Call me a coward, if you like, but I just couldn’t shoot a friend even if he was dying,’ said Robbie. Some of them lay screaming for days.
Asleep (Wilfred Owen)
Under his helmet, up against his pack, After so many days of work and waking, Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.
There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping, Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking Of the aborted life within him leaping, Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.
And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping From the intruding lead, like ants on track.
Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars, High-pillowed on calm pillows of God’s making, Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead, And these winds’ scimitars, —Or whether yet his thin and sodden head Confuses more and more with the low mould, His hair being one with the grey grass Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old, Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass! He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold, Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!
We pray for those who lost their lives. For young and old, for those who watched helpless, for those who died alone. Pray for all who died.
MUSIC – Flowers of the Forest (Royal Scots Dragoon Guards) 2.55
STATION 13 – JESUS IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS
As we contemplate a good man named Joseph of Arimathea taking Jesus’ body down from the cross and lay him in his mother’s arms, we think of all those who care for the dead.
It was the job of the Royal Army Medical Corps to tend the sick and the dead. To carry them on stretchers to hospital or to grave. More than 9 million died on both sides in World War 1. But there were no mothers to hold them at the end. Far away, across the sea, a knock at the door and a telegram handed over. ‘I deeply regret to inform you… It is my painful duty to inform you…’ The women wept alone, arms empty wrapped around themselves. Wept for the waste of youth.
Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmer of goodbyes. The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Wilfred Owen
We pray with Mary our Mother, as she holds her son in her arms, for all who were denied that comfort. For women who wept alone, for all women who lose a child. Pray for all who mourn.
STATION 14 – JESUS IS LAID IN THE TOMB
As we contemplate Joseph and Nicodemus taking Jesus’ body, wrapping it in winding-cloths and spices and laying him in the tomb, we think of all who lie buried in a foreign field.
Some were buried where they fell, in the battlefield. Some in graves close by. 375,000 War Horses too were given a grave of sorts. Row upon row of white headstones or white crosses, silent witnesses to the horror of war. They lie in France, Belgium, Italy far from home. Some named, some ‘known to God alone’. Some have no grave, just names on a memorial. 54,896 names engraved on the Menin Gate at Ypres of Commonwealth soldiers who died but their bodies were never found. Tens of thousands more in other cemeteries nearby.
“Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the greater glory of God) – Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres Salient, but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death”.
Every evening at 2000 hours a bugler sounds the Last Post.
He whom this scroll commemorates was numbered among those who, at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten.
(Rudyard Kipling)
We pray for those who fell, for those deprived of a grave. For those who mourn and grieve, that they may receive the grace and the strength to bear it. Pray for peace.
MUSIC – Lacrymosa (Do Not Stand At My Grave) – Howard Goodall, Eternal Light (A Requiem) 3.04
ENDING
Remember, Lord, those whose stories were unspoken and untold…
Remember, Lord, those whose minds were darkened and disturbed by memories of war…
Remember, Lord, those who suffered in silence, and those whose bodies were disfigured by injury and pain…
Father of all, remember your holy promise, and look with love on all your people, living and departed. On this day we especially ask that you would hold for ever all who suffered during the First World War, those who returned scarred by warfare, those who waited anxiously at home, and those who returned wounded, and disillusioned; those who mourned, and those communities that were diminished and suffered loss. Remember too those who acted with kindly compassion, those who bravely risked their own lives for their comrades, and those who in the aftermath of war, worked tirelessly for a more peaceful world. And as you remember them, remember us, O Lord; grant us peace in our time and a longing for the day when people of every language, race, and nation will be brought into the unity of Christ’s kingdom. This we ask in the name of the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father…
Lighten our darkness, Lord, we pray; and in your mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of your only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Blessing May God the Holy Trinity guard and defend you on every side, strengthen you to face times of difficulty, and keep you rooted in faith and hope; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love and all whom you have lost, this night and always. Amen.
Over time you get to know your little flock’s hands inside out. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you were to pop their hands through one of those fun-fair things where only parts of the body show, I would know whose hands were whose. I know who has a curled up pinky; who wears shell pink nailpolish and tries to capture the slippery wafer with an ever-ready thumb; who has callouses at the base of his fingers from manual work; who was Presbyterian and collects in between two fingers; who has arthritis and can’t straighten them; who wears a gold pinky ring; who has been colouring in… As a result I quite like hands. They tell a lot about a person. They tell you what a person does, how they live, what they do with their time, how their health is.
Yesterday ‘little Eleanor’ came up to the communion rail for her blessing. She used to put her hands out but now she looks at me very seriously. I made the sign of the cross on her pig-tailed head and said to her: “I bless you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And may Jesus be your best friend.” And then I added: “Can you say Amen?” She looked at me solemnly. Then she nodded her head. I laughed. Of course she can say it. Whether she chooses to is another matter! I posted it on Facebook and her mum told me that when she went back to her corner she shared crisps with mum and ‘tall Eleanor’ but made them put their hands out to receive them. How glorious is that?
In my journal I have a poem called Real Presence. I don’t appear to have an author or reference from where it came so please forgive me if its yours (and do let me know).
Hands overlapping, right over left
or sometimes, left over right,
and occasionally, just one hand –
all held out in anticipation
waiting to receive
‘the Body of Christ…’
A farmer’s hands here –
scrubbed clean, yet stained;
the very earth with which he works ingrained,
so that it has become a part of him
‘…broken for you…’
And here his child,
not yet really understanding
yet hands held out –
a little sticky I suspect
from the sweetie hurriedly swallowed
so she could receive;
innocent hands – unblemished.
“…keep you in eternal life.’
A woman’s hands – the farmer’s wife,
mother of the child – and others –
hands rough from many washings,
yet still a hint of that ingrained dirt,
testifying to the shared task
of nurturing land and family.
These hands I know are gentle
yet strong – like the woman herself.
“The Body of Christ…’
Another farmer; rugged hands,
oil stained I think,
adding to the beauty of ingrained earth.
(Perhaps he had trouble with the car
on the way to church,
or with the tractor yesterday.)
‘…broken for you…’
Young, delicate hands now,
their bearer not yet adult,
but no longer a child.
Her eyes meet mine and she smiles
and raises her hands to meet the gift
‘…keep you in eternal life.’
One hand here,
the other supporting the tiny babe
sleeping peacefully – downy forehead
offered for the sign of the cross
“The Lord bless you and keep you.”
“The Body of Christ…’
These hands are old and gnarled,
misshapen, barely able to stretch out,
telling of long years lived
and pain endured,
yet open they do,
expressing love and longing
“…broken for you…’
Dusty hands draw my eyes to his face;
a cheeky grin – an adult body
with a child’s mind.
His hands were probably clean
when he left home –
but I know he collects pebbles
and no doubt his pockets are full of them.
And now, hands outstretched, he waits
‘…keep you in eternal life.”
And there are more – and more.
As I move along the row of waiting hands
I see another –
his hands pierced, his body broken –
and I know he is present.
‘The Body of Christ, broken for you
keep you in eternal life.”
I am not God.
I am busy, and I can do much.
But I am not God.
I can command many,
I can do powerful things.
But I am not God.
At the end I will go back to dust.
Really I am not very powerful,
really I am rather fragile,
helpless, even.
I’m not even in charge
when I like to think I am.
Without my little flock,
without my family, my ‘help me’ friends,
I would quickly wither away.
Without God
I would simply fade away.
This Lent, God,
you tell me to set down your world,
to set it down
and let you carry it for me.
Thank you God.
I wish I listened to you more often.
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