Saturday 8 November 2014

Remembering the beginning and ending of the 1914-1918 War


Remembering the beginning and ending of the 1914-1918 War


During WW1 8.7 million men from the UK served in the Army from 1914-1918 – equivalent to the total Population of London in 2014
956,703 were killed or died from their wounds equivalent to the total Population of Birmingham in 2014

For every soldier who died 9 came home.

Came home having seen and been part of the horrors and reality of First World War.
They came home traumatised by what they had seen and been part of.
They came home to a country, a city, a town, a village where every man, woman and child had for 4 years done their part of this modern war – Total War.
They came home to a nation of men, women and children who had been traumatised, who had lived with the real fear of death be it for the first time from aerial bombardment, starvation or the fear of defeat in this titanic struggle.

Today we remember
Tuesday we will remember at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th Month that the guns fell silent.

But will we really learn the lessons of our past?

We teach our children in the play ground that fighting is wrong.
We teach our children that there is another way to resolving our problems than resorting to violence.
And yet for the last 100 years we have been taught to hate the foreigner
we have seen how war turns family in to foes
we have seen how war turns neighbours into enemies
we have seen the shattering of faith in Christian nations
we have yet to find the other way to resolving our problems that we tell our children can be done without violence?

Come let us go up to the mountain of God
to the house of the God of Jacob

That God may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in paths

For he law shall go out of Zion
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem

God shall judge between the nations
and shall mediate for many peoples

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares
and their spears in to pruning hooks

Nation shall not lift up sword against Nation
neither shall they learn war anymore       Isaiah 2.3-4

No comments:

Post a Comment