This prayer, meditation and address were part of a service that I led at Oxford Unitarians on 13 November 2011.
Prayer:
Divine Spirit, source of all being,
From whom we emerge and to whom we
return,
We have gathered today to remember
lives lost in war.
For it is written,
“Greater love hath no man than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends.”
We are thankful for the great love
that gave us freedom and for the sacrifice of those who died that we may live
in freedom.
But we wonder sometimes if our freedom
was not bought at too dear a cost.
And we pray for peace among the
nations, and dialogue between warring factions.
May we always remember those who died
in war and persecution – not only the soldiers, but the civilians who were
raped and tortured and butchered.
May we honour those who stood as a
witness for peace, because they would not turn their hands to killing.
May our lives and our communities be a
beacon of justice, peace and hope,
And may our words and deeds be a
witness for peace, all the days of our lives.
And when we fall into strife and
bitterness, may we forgive ourselves and others, and work for reconciliation
and renewed trust.
We would live our own lives in such a
manner that we plant seeds of peace, and not seeds of war.
We would work for peace and justice
and tolerance, so that war may be prevented.
For we are held in your vast and
mysterious love,
Each life a bright thread in the
tapestry of being,
And all are
one, and one is all, and the divine life shines in each and all.
Amen.
Meditation: Fallen leaves by Yvonne Aburrow
Each year with the falling of the
leaves we shall remember them
As the years drift into the silence of
longing –
The longing for the ones who never
came back.
A photograph, dimmed by time, is all
that remains;
A lock of hair, a memory, a name, each
evoking
A man that lived and breathed and
laughed.
Poets and dreamers, craftsmen and
lovers,
Farmers and ploughmen, boys from the
shires,
Fallen leaves in the autumn, returning
to the soil.
Address: War
and peace
War, when you look at it, is a very
strange cultural phenomenon. Vast amounts of men and machines are pitted
against each other, and it is not moral superiority that ensures victory, but
superior tactics and technology. It is odd that the outcome is determined by
tactics and technology rather than by who is actually right. One might as well determine
the outcome by having politicians engage in single combat in a large stadium,
as it would save an awful lot of lives and resources.
Of course faith in the rightness of
the cause motivates the combatants, and we would like to think that those who
are fighting for the morally superior side actually have a stronger motivation
– because they are motivated by love of justice and freedom and humanity,
rather than by anger towards a minority, or fear of retribution by their
commanders. These ideas hold up reasonably well for the Second World War,
because it was fairly obvious that Nazism must be defeated – but America was
still racially segregated when it was busy fighting the Nazis, and many people
in Britain flirted with far right politics during the Great Depression, so
there must have been people fighting the Nazis who supported segregation and
right-wing politics, or who were just fighting for nationalistic reasons. The
idea that faith in the rightness of the cause determined the outcome of the
First World War does not hold up so well, though, because it was the last great
war of imperialism, and both sides had made alliances and grabbed territory,
and were squabbling over who should have the most land.
I also find it deeply disturbing that
if the reparations imposed on Germany
after the First World War had not been so punitive, then the Great Depression
would not have had such a huge impact on the German economy, and the Nazis
might never have got into power. If only the victors of the First World War had
read Lao Tsu’s warning to leaders victorious in wars. He said, “Treat victory like a funeral” – in
other words, don’t gloat over your defeated enemy and demand revenge, but treat
them well and kindly so that they won’t want to fight you again.
Lao Tsu’s work, written in the 6th
century BCE, is partly intended as a treatise on statecraft, and its ideas are
still applicable today.
One politician who might well have
been applying similar principles was the much-maligned Neville Chamberlain.
Chamberlain was a Unitarian, and related to a long-standing Unitarian family.
He did everything he could to prevent war (as is well known), but he also built
up Britain’s
armaments in case war turned out to be inevitable (something that is not so
well-known). It was a very practical and balanced approach to the politics of
the day.
My own attitude to war is fairly
ambivalent. I admire the heroism of warriors, and the camaraderie of regiments,
and their colourful and stirring traditions. I admire the craftsmanship and
technology that goes into making weapons like swords, bows and arrows, castles
and siege engines. I find people’s
personal war stories absolutely fascinating, and never tire of listening to
them. On the other hand, I abhor the bloodshed and violence, the blind fury of
battle, the slaughter of men, the terrible waste of humanity and talent that is
involved, and the sorrow of bereavement on such a vast scale, and the tragedy
of the physically maimed and psychologically scarred men that return from war. I
often think of Wilfred Owen, whose poems we heard earlier, which often move me
to tears. Wilfred Owen was killed in the last week of the First World War, and
his mother received the telegram informing her of his death as the church bells
announcing the Armistice were ringing out over the Shropshire
hills.
And yet, and yet, I am grateful that imperialism
and Nazism and other horrors were defeated so that we can live in freedom now.
I wear a red poppy in memory of those who gave their lives for our freedom, and
a white poppy in the hope that one day no-one will ever have to make that
sacrifice again.
One thing that is very striking about
the experience of war, is that people never seem to feel so alive as when death
is so close to them. People lived more intensely and vividly, as if the saying
“Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” was never far from their minds.
If you have ever read the novels of Mary Wesley, you will be aware of how
intensely life was lived during the war – lovers did not know if they would
ever see each other again, and so they gave their all. There was camaraderie and a sense of common
humanity during the Blitz – although, as someone who lived through that period
pointed out to me, there were also a lot of people making a fast buck on the black
market and exploiting others.
On the other hand, there are wonderful
stories like the Christmas Truce of 1914, and the friendship of JRR Tolkien
with his batman in the trenches, which he recreated in literary form in the
relationship of Frodo and Sam in The Lord
of the Rings – and it is very clear that Frodo would not have succeeded in
his quest if it were not for the support of his friend Sam.
I think, however, that what is
happening here is the beauty and compassion of humanity asserting itself in spite
of the horrors of war, not because of them. Tolkien was one of a group of four
close friends at grammar school, and he was the only one to survive the First
World War.
If only the heroism and the
craftsmanship could be channelled towards peaceful ends. If only the world was
a more just and equitable place, where resources were fairly distributed and
nobody thought they needed to fight for territory, or try to wipe out people
who are different. It’s possible to create camaraderie and fellow-feeling by digging
a fire-pit for a weekend camp – there’s no need to go to war to create it.
Imagine a world without war. Instead
of money being spent on guns and tanks and fighter planes, it would be spent on
improving the lives of ordinary people. There’s a well-known feminist poster
that says, imagine if the army had to hold jumble sales to raise money for
weapons, and healthcare was properly funded. It’s true, there is something
wrong with a world where wars are automatically funded, but hospitals have to
fund-raise for essential equipment.
The Quakers talk about the seeds of
war. There are ideas and practices prevalent in our society that make war more
likely, make it seem inevitable, even. The way boys are discouraged from
showing emotion, and encouraged to regard women as objects, so that they could
one day be soldiers. The way our taxes go to fund the army and the maintenance
of weapons, whether we want them to or not. The way that our industry is geared
towards the manufacture and distribution of weapons of war. The way that social
inequality is maintained, one result of which is that the army seems like a
good career for a working-class lad.
If there are seeds of war, there must
also be seeds of peace – seeds that we can plant. There are practices like non-violent
communication, meditation, contemplation, community-building, diplomacy,
interfaith dialogue, living sustainably, volunteering overseas, all of which
promote an understanding of other people and cultures, promote dialogue rather
than violence, and contribute towards the creation of a just and peaceful
world. But there can be no peace until there is social and environmental
justice. Until resources are fairly distributed, there will always be people
trying to grab land and resources, or people trying to prevent others from
getting them. I am pretty sure that both the Gulf Wars and the Falklands War
were about oil, and the reason that no-one has bothered to liberate Tibet from
the Chinese is because it has no natural resources worth exploiting, and
because China is a major creditor and trading partner of Western countries.
Let us, therefore, seek out and plant
the seeds of peace. Let us seek to see things from other people’s point of
view. Let us promote interfaith dialogue, non-violent communication and social
and environmental justice. And let us practice peace in our own lives, as I
know many of you are already doing. For as A J Muste once said, “There is no
way to peace: peace is the way”.
