VE Day Postscript

On June 4th 1940 Churchill gave one of his most famous wartime speeches. And this is the central passage.

'We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.'

I always knew it was a powerful piece of rhetoric. He managed to convey strength of character as he channelled a British strength of character. The emotion flew way ahead of the words. But, although I have heard it many times before, I only worked out recently that he expected to lose.

Mark Forsyth shows us this in his book 'The Elements of Eloquence'. In the chapter on anaphora (starting each phrase or sentence with the same word or words) he quotes this speech. And he shows us that all people remember are the big verbs - fight, defend, never surrender.

And so it is constantly quoted to encourage us to win at things.

Apparently, and my Wikipedia source is not completely certain, he spoke in the lobby after the speech of fighting with the broken ends of beer bottles if necessary. Let's add in a few things the audience were not encouraged to think during the speech:

'We shall go on to the end (our end).

We shall fight in France... (and then when we are driven out of France)

... we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches,... (when they invade)

...we shall fight on the landing grounds,... (when they try to land)

...we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,... (when they win on the beaches and landing grounds)

...we shall fight in the hills;... (when driven out of our streets and fields)

...we shall never surrender.' (we will become a resistance movement)

A following passage exhorted the new world to get organised and come to the rescue of the old world, eventually.

He expected us to lose yet spoke with the energy of a winner. That's the genius of it. It took me a while to see it.

Thought for the Day

Apologies for minimalist posting here recently. Got a bit swamped in admin if I'm honest. I can do a brilliant job of the day to day admin of ministry unless some family admin intervenes, on top of which bleaugh for the last three days. Anyway, managed to squeak out a TFTD at BBC Radio Bristol this morning and here it is:

The Bible is big on remembering. A theme of the Hebrew scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament, is the assumption that if things have gone badly people must have neglected the Law. And vice versa.

In a shorter piece called 'History Lesson' the poet Steve Turner wrote:

History repeats itself.

Has to.

No-one listens.

This week we move clumsily from one piece of recall:

Remember, remember the 5th of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot

To another:

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them

Are we listening to history?

My Dad joined the RAF in 1941 aged 17. He could fly before he could drive. He flew Wellington bombers and Dakota passenger transporters. His emotional relationship with Remembrance Sunday was complicated. I never sussed it. My family didn't do conversations about feelings.

I reckon he missed his mates who died, dealt with the trauma of war by forgetting and forced himself to watch the wreath-laying service from the Cenotaph every year. He behaved disrespectfully to any wreath-layers who hadn't served as he did. And he had no time for anyone who voiced the idea that they were showing more respect than others.

I wonder what he would have made of the recent tendency to make art of poppy installations.

Strangely, it has become my job to try to articulate the complex emotions of remembrance. What is the lesson of history that we need to learn? Before we even think about telling someone off for not wearing a poppy let us take time to be silent.

In fact two minutes quiet to stop and think might be a great way to respond to anything we disagree with.

Thought for the Day

Serious thought today. As delivered this morning at BBC Radio Bristol.

I know I often wander around the lighter side of the Thought for the Day room. But not today. Not today.

I was very moved by the Shrouds of the Somme installation on College Green when I visited it last weekend. It ends today.

Rob Heard's creation represents the 19,240 men who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The first day.

I find it stops me in my tracks when I make a comparison. I think of the town where I live, Nailsea. The population is a little less than that. But imagining every single person in Nailsea falling victim to a sudden death. A whole town wiped off the map. That's the equivalent of what happened.

Everyone who died was somebody's friend, father, son, husband...

Both my grandfathers were the right age to be one of those people. They served elsewhere and survived. So I'm here.

Each hand-stitched shroud on College Green offers dignity to someone who died suddenly, violently, indiscriminately and probably without a chance to fight back. It is somehow restorative.

In one of his shorter works the poet Steve Turner wrote:

History repeats itself.
Has to.
No-one listens. 

I will be taking a funeral a little later this morning. And I will remind everyone of another, older poem a soldier wrote about his God:

Even though I walk

through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

So why not find a response. Say a prayer. Throw a coin in a Children in Need bucket. Keep your own moment of silence.

Stop the War

Twitter asked this morning, in the light of Chilcot, if anyone admits to being in favour of the war against Iraq. Now obviously the voting record of Parliament is there to see so there were many MPs in favour. I recall being encouraged by friends to go on the Stop the War Coaition march. I was uneasy.

Who goes on these marches? Obviously the first group of people are those who are against all war; complete pacifists who would rather lose their country peacefully than fight. I am a coward but I am not a pacifist. I believe there is such a thing as a just war.

The second group would be those who felt that this war was not right. This group would have mixed motives. Some would have felt that it was too remote, didn't really concern us. Others felt that the case for it had not been proven although, as I recall, nobody argued that Saddam Hussein wasn't a bad guy. This group wanted diplomatic means pursued, a second UN resolution or, to summarise 'a little bit more.' It follows that if they had seen what they wanted they would have backed war.

My point is this. Dodgy dossiers and faked intelligence were not a reason. Some, very smart, people felt the long-game hadn't been thought through. They were right. But nobody seemed to think they were being lied to.

But for many of us, doing the best we could with newspaper coverage, parliamentary debate and TV news, the case was just about made. This was a bad guy with a finger on some sort of chemical/nuclear trigger in one of the world's permanent trouble spots.

With hindsight I was wrong. We should have delayed and let the USA do all the working they felt called to. It would have jeopardised our relationship with the US (it was Bush's US so I wouldn't have lost too much sleep over that). If we had let them take all the blame they seem to have the ability to put failure behind them much quicker than us. US educational systems tend to value action and contribution over and above accuracy. The situation in Iraq would probably have been worse today. I value the ability of our troops on the ground to do the jobs required of them effectively and for our troop leaders to have unbelievable qualities of diplomacy after the theatre is no longer a war zone.

So I was pro-war. Just about. I started to worry when Iraqi looters took stuff from the museums of 'liberated' towns. I began to realise there had not been much thought about 'what next?'

All the tabloid press is hammering Blair now. At the time opponents of the war were hammered for being 'traitors' who won't support our wonderful troops.

I respect all those who were anti-war. Try and remember what the key reason was, for you. Watch out for hindsight.

Quote of the Day

1106. Blaise Pascal said, 'Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?'
(Quoted by Brian McLaren in A New Kind of Christianity)

Quote Book Index 591-600

More P.J.O'Rourke:

591. Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.

Trapped between two silences

If it came to it, and you knew you were going to be remembered in public, would you want a minute's silence or a minute's applause?

Our culture is changing.

I did a quick Bible study on silence this week, in preparation for a thought for the day at a men's breakfast this morning.

Obviously there is no noise in a vacuum, so when the earth was without form and void it would have been quiet. Genesis 1 tells us God spoke into this silence. There then follows a hubbub, a cacophony as the created order finds its place and seemingly, in the process, loses its God.

Only with the onset of the ministry of prophets do we have the poignant thought that God is not in the earthquake, wind or fire (where his people might have expected him after a few skirmishes on mountains) but a still small voice. When the earth was formless he could speak quietly. Why raise his volume now?

In the wisdom tradition Job's best comfort comes from friends sitting in silence; when they speak they screw up. Proverbs tell us that a fool seems wise when he remains silent. Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time to be silent and a time to speak.

Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be silent like a sheep before its shearers. Six centuries later, before the High Priest, Mark tells us the Messiah stood and said nothing.

After the resurrection the noise is of proclamation with accompanying special effect tongues of fire and wind. Now there can be shouting. The rest of the New Testament is all talk.

At the end of all things Revelation tells us only of silence in heaven for half an hour.

On Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday we fall silent for two minutes in memory of those who fell silent for ever. We are currently the people in between, a poppy for comfort.

You may applaud me when I'm gone if you wish. But silence reminds the senders of the sent. It takes one to make a noise; it takes everyone to make a silence.

Thick Skinned

Those of us who have a public profile, however slim, have to be used to taking flak from time to time. I went to a training session recently where it was suggested that clergy have to deal with this especially. I didn't agree. Anyone who has been a shop assistant, bank clerk or waiter to name but three will have experienced being in the front-line of crap catching on a daily basis. Those clergy who have never had a public service job may find themselves less able to deal with this than others. If you wear a uniform you will be an object to others, rather than a person, representing an organisation with which they want to get cross. Or even a God with whom they don't quite see eye to eye.

I can't imagine how bad it is to be in a position where, due to the nature of our oppositional politics, you will get crap whatever. You make a generally good point and 90% of the time will then focus on the 10% of your argument that wasn't quite there.

You take you time making a decision - you're a ditherer.

You make snap judgements - you're too hasty.

And if you're Prime Minister you don't represent anyone. The buck absolutely stops on your desk.

My skin is thick. OK all of me is. Can't imagine how thick it would have to be to step up to the next rank. Pray for our politicians this Remembrance Weekend. None of them, none of them, send armed forces personnel into danger without due thought.

Haunting Verse

Deuteronomy 6:10-12 was mentioned in passing in a sermon last night and it has niggled me again.

When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Not forgetting God. Good idea. Main point. I buy it. But. There are some verses where you take your shoes and socks off because they are holy ground. But this one. Do you see the problem? Let's try a paraphrase to help:

Remember God promised you land one day? Well he's been scouting around and he's found some. It belongs to someone else but don't let that worry you. Move into their cities and kick them out. Move into their houses and take their property. Then, when you sit back and eat the olives and drink the wine of those people, who by the way you are to slaughter by and large, don't forget who found the estate agent.

Taking the land of others is so wrong, now that most borders are fixed, that it takes us a while to jump back to a time when indigenous peoples were still working out who had a right to what. Right up to the late eighteenth century the attitude of the strong around the world, was that they could take whatever they could get. The Brits were just about the last Empire to do that. Indeed we had control of Palestine for the first half of the twentieth century. We repent now. If we try to make our green and pleasant land a welcoming place for strangers with generosity to asylum seekers it is only redressing the balance. Hope we continue to.

But that this act of violence towards the Canaanites - Palestinians if you like - is enshrined in Scripture as an act approved by God. Did he? Or did Joshua and the gang do it and assume it had God's blessing afterwards because they won. The winners write a lot of history.

Over the next three millennia most world powers and empires had a go at Palestine. Since 1947 the State of Israel has been allowed to exist in international law but, as we all know, it is not accepted by all in the Arab world and Deuteronomy 6:10-12 smells horrid without contextualisation. It does not condone kicking other people out of their land as a principle. It says that whatever military victory you achieve, whatever your circumstances, do not forget your maker. And if you remember your maker you might just want to apologise to the family you threw into the garden in order to sleep on their beds. Or am I missing something?

Public Enquiry

If we had all the public enquiries people demanded we would have to double taxes, I swear. Yesterday the Radio 4 news returned a few times to a woman who represented the victims of July 7th 2005. She felt that there were too many unanswered questions, especially in the light of the accusation from the Saudis that the UK had failed to act upon information given that would have prevented those tube and bus bombings. She demanded a full public enquiry.

Time out. Can you imagine, can you possibly imagine, our security or police services sitting back and saying, 'Ah well, we lost that one but we'll carry on the same?'

I can't. Every agency which was involved in July 7th will have carried out a review and learn procedure.

A public enquiry might well serve the purpose of allowing terrorists to understand how they got through and also identify ways in which they might get through in the future. We would learn but so would they. I'm not anti public enquiries per se but I am realistic enough to know that some things which are secret are secret for a good reason and need to remain so.

I think our nation divides into those who broadly trust the police and security services and those who don't. Do you?

Silly Questions

Why did our sailors and marines not restrict their answers, under Iranian interrogation, to name, rank and serial number?

Because we're not at war with Iran and those rules are to do with war.

Why is it inappropriate for members of the armed forces to sell their stories?

Because then it might become more enticing for such a person to be captured for the long-term, gain of financial advancement in some future, minor conflict.

Why hasn't anyone said these things clearly yet?

Padre David

My former CPAS colleague David Banbury is an army chaplain and currently serving in Iraq. Follow the link above to a short (under 4 minutes) video diary of his experiences. Moving.

Trebuchet

Today was fun. I was invited to run three workshops in writing skills for 7-9 year olds from various local schools. The event was at Warwick Castle. With the wall as a backdrop we dreamed up good characters, bad characters, locations and happenings which we mixed and matched to make stories. Harry the Headchopper was a particular favourite.

At lunchtime we all sat on the bank to witness the firing of the trebuchet. I had no idea what one of these was until I moved to within a stone's throw (bad pun, sorry) of Warwick Castle thirteen years ago and Jonathan brought that and etiolate home as spellings. Different league to Cestria County Primary I can tell you.

Anyway a trebuchet. It's a device for throwing rocks the size of footballs at a castle wall, although despicable users are not renowned for restraint and lack of imagination when hurling things into castles. We were told that the machine could be used to throw fire, quick-lime and defeated soldiers' body parts. Oh and manure. Don't forget the manure.

Three or four guys get in a giant hamster's wheel and legging it round use it to lift a counterweight which pulls back a huge arm made of a bendy wood such as ash. The arm is locked off. Then the rope is unsnagged from one end. The sling is filled with the ammo. Everyone stands clear and the firer pulls out the locking pin. The weight falls, the arm shoots up and over in a great arc and the sling attached to it travels back along the ground and then up and over, following the arm and releasing its contents. Boy did those contents get some height and speed.

I went to have a look at the two foot hole in the ground the ball had made. It would make some mess of a castle wall and anyone in the way I can tell you. Terrific fun in peace time. Go and visit Warwick Castle.

The trebuchet is fired twice a day and there are also falconry displays, archery demonstrations and, of course, the dungeons, the ramparts and all the rooms and waxworks. It is £15 for adults but good value I reckon, especially if you can wrangle it so you are paid to go. Tee hee.

Summary

Massively quick summary of the week so far and its required thinking:

1. Alabama 3 at Warwick Student's Union. Excellent. Two new songs to open which both sounded good. D Wayne's vocal not loud enough. Larry spent the whole set singing sitting with a goat's head didgeredoo in his hand (I kid you not). Had he done his back? Not as good a show as Oxford in May. Haven't seen a band at the beginning and end of the same tour before. They looked tired and a little mashed.

2. Apparently some people have voiced dissatisfaction about the things I blogged under the 'New Kind of Christian' heading a few days ago. Of course being part of the normal human race they voiced the dissatisfaction to someone else not me. Why can churches not manage honest debate better than others? We should be good at it. People could even put a comment on the blog without too much difficulty. I don't remove genuine comments; only spam.

3. A Christian Charity who believe in trade justice for all paid me two months late without interest. Hmmm.

4. Brian Draper's thought for the day today brilliantly set out the difficulty of believing that God would tell you to invade a country. It is as if, he said, they have failed to realise that the boundary between good and evil runs down the middle of each person not down a country's border. Big up to the person he referred to as wearing the Who Would Jesus Bomb? T-shirt this week.

5. The crew at Solo Restaurant have bought the Wykeham Arms at Sibford Gower, just west of Banbury and close enough to Hook Norton to sell their beers. Go. Now.

Took friends to Solo last night. Another brilliant meal. Having been to their places three times in a fortnight we got free coffees and no charge for a half glass of champagne.

6. Our oldest has decided to move out. Our youngest has moved out. Did I ever tell you that since eldest is Ben and youngest is Jon we have Big Ben and Little Jon. Never saw that coming when we named them. So last night's meal was courtesy of the only month of our lives when our sons make a nett contribution to our household budget, Jon no longer requiring support and Ben handing over his final rent cheque.