Bearing the Scars—Carolyn R. Wilker

Across the country today, people will gather at cenotaphs and lay wreaths for the soldiers who gave up their lives for our country. There are likely only a small number of those veterans from the World Wars remaining who might lay a wreath to their comrades or read from a list of young men from the community who ‘answered the call’ to fight in a war that was not of their making.

In many communities, you can see names carved in a monument of citizens who went away to fight and never returned. Of those who came home, many were physically wounded and bearing scars we can’t see. It would change their lives forever. While Remembrance Day is mainly for the World Wars, our military has also fought in other places around the world, including Afghanistan, where they were called to defend or fight. A soldier might go away bravely, but come back different and unable to cope, or they might pick up their job and try to carry on.

All wars have a cost. The soldiers went away, likely believing they could make a difference and those who returned home either talked about it or they didn’t. I only know from the stories I’ve heard of people who lived through war in their country, who were deprived of a bread winner who was enlisted to fight, or that they were fearful for their lives about what was going on around them. In Canada, we’ve had more distance from it.

My own mother-in-law shared little, but she did tell me about one situation in her life during the war. I could only imagine her family’s fear when soldiers came knocking on their door demanding their home as a place for soldiers to stay. The family could only take with them what they could load on a wagon. Their place for the nights and days that followed was the forest. She told me of worrying about wild animals there while they slept on the ground. I hurt for her as she told it. I felt fearful for her as a young girl, a fear she carried into adulthood and to the end of her life. It caused her much angst; her experience changed her and affected the lives of those around her.

A storyteller relates an occurrence of soldiers laying down their guns on Christmas Eve in France, sharing treats, pictures from home and singing carols with their opponents and then having to pick up those guns the next day. I’m sure there were many stories of bravery too, and of being decorated for a heroic act, but I cannot write those. They are others’ stories of survival.

Today is one of heaviness that’s hard to talk about and harder to write, maybe a reason that few go to the cenotaph service. If we remember anything from those who speak candidly of their war experiences, show respect and help us to recognize the cost. 

If we can work for peace, all the better for us.

We do have one who bears scars for us. Jesus Christ died for us and experienced the agony of the cross for humanity’s sin. He died that we might live. We were loved before we could love. If it helps at all today, let us think about peace and practise it.

“Make me a channel of your peace...”  inspired by the prayer of St Francis of Assisi

Listen to the song here.

Carolyn Wilker, editor, author and storyteller from southwestern Ontario

www.carolynwilker.ca

G.K. Chesterton and St. Francis - HIRD

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

The late G.K. Chesterton is one of the most significant writers in the past hundred years.   His ‘friendly enemy’ George Bernard Shaw called him a colossal genius.  Chesterton wrote many biographies, including those of Robert Louis Stevenson, William Chaucer, St Benedict and St Francis of Assisi.  Chesterton’s biography on St Francis told us as much about Chesterton as about St. Francis.  They had remarkable things in common.  Both Chesterton and Francis had a grateful appreciation of the gift of God’s creation. Rather than exploit nature, they both cared for it as faithful stewards. Who can forget the classic movie ‘Brother Sun Sister Moon’ with its message of peace so loved by the hippies of San Francisco (Spanish for Saint Francis)?  As Chesterton noted, “St Francis was so fiery and even fidgety that the church officials, before he appeared quite suddenly, thought he was a madman.” To renounce his wealthy father’s materialism did not make any initial sense to most people in his home town of Assisi. Both Francis and Chesterton were radically spontaneously generous to the poor and hurting.  Everything they did for others was out of gratitude for Jesus’ sacrificial love on the cross.

There was a playful laughter with both men that has won the hearts of millions.   Both used humorous drama to awaken the world from its cynical slumber.  Chesterton was called the Angelic Jester.  There is in both Chesterton and Francis an endearing childlikeness and innocence that draws people to Christ.  Joseph Pearce, a Chesterton biographer, noted that “…the paradox of innocent wisdom was a fertile ground for Chesterton’s imagination.”  The famous Oxford atheist CS Lewis came to faith after reading Chesterton’s book The Everlasting Man.   It has been said that Chesterton, as one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed, made up for being deep by being witty.  Both Chesterton and Francis not only made you think but also made you laugh.  In a very Franciscan way, Chesterton taught that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility.  Only grateful people are humble enough to laugh at themselves.

Both Chesterton and Francis were romantic troubadours of hope calling people away from fashionable despair and cynicism. As self-described jugglers and jesters of God, they passionately romanced our hearts.  At the heart of this romance was the key idea of taking things with gratitude and not taking things for granted.  Without gratitude, said Chesterton, all we are left with is the emptiness of ‘bread and circuses’.  Gratitude to God enables us, with Francis and Chesterton, to enjoy the gifts that are all around us.  Chesterton commented about the joy of seeing a dandelion after temporary blindness, and how true pessimists can’t even notice the sunset.  My prayer for those reading this article is that we like Chesterton and Francis will notice the dandelions and sunsets with new gratitude. 

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s North Vancouver, 

Anglican Mission in Canada

-author of ‘Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit’

-an article for the Light Magazine and the Deep Cove Crier