Remembrance Sunday 2008

by The Chaplain

"To those who would tear the world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you.

And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope."

I hope that you might have had chance to hear some part, if not all of Barack Obama's victory speech made earlier this week as he celebrated his election to the post of President of the United States of America -- the most powerful role in the world. As the first black president, he made one of the great speeches of our time, reflecting upon the legacy of Martin Luther King, and drawing together the diversity and legacy of the American people, and many of the key events of the last century. I really do commend the speech to you and I am sure that you could find it within seconds on the internet.

But the genius of his speech was to give recent American history a sense of perspective by putting those years in the context of the 106 year lifetime of a lady named Ann Nixon Cooper. He reflected upon a time when black people and women could not even vote, and upon the technological and world events she had witnessed. Amongst those events he said that, when "tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved."

And it is for that same purpose we gather here today - to remember what was saved by the two greatest wars of the last century, and the cost in human lives of achieving that. We are not here to celebrate victory or to celebrate military strength or Britain's place in the world. Taking the lead from Barack Obama I would dare to remind you that we are here to remember the ideals of democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope and those who gave their lives in defence and support of those ideals through the two world wars of the last century.

All I want to really say to you this morning, is that we need to have and to hold onto ideals, because it is those ideals that shape our thoughts, our actions, our individual lives and ultimately the communities, the nation and the world in which we live. And, perhaps with little more than reference to the shaking of our confidence in the credit based economy, I want to challenge those whose ideals are purely selfish. And I want to hold up the example of the lives of service of those whom we remember today, and the examples of those who serve in our forces today, as honourable reflections of what it means to live for ideals.

And to give this day a sense of perspective, the 11th of November this year - Tuesday-will be the 90th anniversary, of the Armistice and the end of the first world war.

We remember the tens and hundreds of thousands who fought and died in that war, just as today we named and remembered the 38 former pupils of this school who died in what came to be called 'The Great War'. We also remember those who carried their injuries and their memories of that war through their lives. And of the hundreds of thousands who fought in that war only three British men remain alive -- indeed two of whom are the two oldest men in the country today -- Harry Patch, Bill Stone and Henry Allingham. Henry Allingham is the oldest at 112 but I would just like to make some reference to Harry Patch, aged 110, who was born in Combe Down just over the border in Somerset, and today lives in a nursing home in Wells.

In a television interview about five years ago he recalled and the moment when he came face to face with a German soldier. He said that he recalled Moses descending from Mount Sinai with God's commandment, 'thou shalt not kill', and couldn't kill the German. He shot him above the knee, and in the ankle. Harry Patch said, "I had about five seconds to make the decision. I brought him down, but I didn't kill him".

I don't know how that reflects against military training but it says to me that Harry Patch drew upon some other background of formation in the basics of faith, and the sixth commandment. There was something deep within him that recognised the value of all human life. I am worried that you might find that story too unbelievable, even though it is the testimony of one of only three remaining witnesses of that war. I worry that the moral foundation shaped by the violence in such mainstream films as Quantum of Solace and computer games in our society would simply normalise the belief of 'kill first before you are killed' and that the lives of others are seen to be very relative. I feel that our society has become too quick to name others as our enemies and to confuse self-defence with pre-emptive retaliation. As nations and individuals we hit back because we are afraid and because we do not take the time to try to understand.

The Bible tries to remind us that in the eyes of God we are all loved and there is a common humanity beneath the differences we create or perceive. And so we must have ideals that shape firstly our character, some of which St. Paul identifies as compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

And when those ideals have shaped who we are, we must allow them to shape our relationships, most importantly, through the ideal and the practice of forgiveness. Only then can we truly understand the greatest ideals of all, to be focussed on sharing love and living in peace.

The tragedy of our times is that ideals can so easily be rejected with the words 'why should we'. Why should we love, why should we be patient, why should we be kind, why should we be forgiving? Or, if you wanted to reject the four ideals of which Barack Obama spoke. Why should we value democracy? Why should we value liberty for all people? Why should we want opportunity for others and not just for myself? Why should we hope?

And most sadly, for many people today, or on Tuesday, the question is 'why should we remember?' We cannot see the personal advantage in doing things for others.

At the end of your life, what you have and much of what you have done, will be insignificant in comparison to a reflection on the person you have been. And the person you become does not happen by magic or by accident. The person you become is shaped by the ideals you hold onto - those that come from a good family, a good school and a good society. And the measure of goodness is not success but character.

Remembering and honouring the good lives of those who have gone before us is a reflection of our character. It is the character and the way of life that continues to be upheld by the servicemen and women of today. And to share such values as courage, integrity and loyalty are ideals that we all need to have regardless of whatever stage in life we are at or career we have chosen to follow.

Because sadly if you are a person who does not believe in very much, or who is shaped by the changing tides of opinion or circumstances, that might also be reflected in who you become.

When we remember those who died in the world wars of the last century, and as we stand in silence to also remember those who have died in the many other conflicts of our lifetimes we reflect on the words 'they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old'. Our memory of their lives was shaped forever by their final actions of dying in defence of all for which they believed. They were the peacemakers. They are the children of God. They died in the pursuit of their ideals. But we must live in the pursuit of those same ideals of democracy, liberty, opportunity and hope. And I only hope and pray that we might have the courage to hold onto those values and never to squander the freedom and the opportunities we have been given.

The Head Master's reading, from the final chapter of the entire Bible, describes the conclusion of a vision to St. John, the last of Jesus' disciples, in which he sees a new earth, spoken of as the new Jerusalem, the kingdom of God, shaped by the love and the presence of God.

It is not some event that will suddenly break through into human history. The kingdom of God is something that we are tasked with building through our commitment to peace and to love and to forgive. I hope that at the end of Barack Obama's presidency, or even in another 100 years time, people might look back and see how the world has been shaped by those ideals that we celebrate today: through the lives of those whom we honour and pledge to always remember.

The Revd David Johnson

Dauntsey's School

November 2008