Another very very cold day! -2 degrees best, - 8 the worst. I can't imagine how people could or can be out for long periods in this. Despite the sunshine it is bitterly cold - yet the battles in the First and Second World Wars went on, and brave men fought on - they had more to think about than the weather!
Set out today for Ypres in Belgium - the centre of the fighting in Flanders Fields. But our first port of call was Poperinge. I wanted to re-visit Talbot House, set up by army chaplain Revd Tubby Clayton, for servicemen of whatever rank to come together, to pray and worship together, to play together, to eat together, to discover each other and to share experiences. This of course was the start of TocH which still goes strong today. This is also at the heart of my ministry, at bringing people together - people who have fallen out, hurt each other, never really discovered each other, or who carry generational hatreds or bitternesses. How successful I am at this, I will leave others to decide!!
Talbot House was great, and although the actual chapel was being re-decorated, I was still able to climb the difficult stairs, and experience the shear starkness, and yet the beauty of the chapel built into the roof of the building. We just managed our prayerful tour round, before 3 coach loads of students from Leicester and St Albans descended on the peace and tranquility.
There was one irony when we arrived. Talbot House was open throughout the First World War 24/7 for any man who needed to be there. When we arrived, there was a sign hanging on the door saying "closed for lunch, back in half an hour". We waited almost 50 minutes in the cold, before it opened again. We appreciated the wait, because we saw the funny side of it!
From Poperinge we went to Passendale - the site of much fighting during the 3 battles of Ypres. Tyn Cot, the largest British Military Cemetery in the World is very near, and although we didn't go there today, it is very very moving, and when we take our Parish friends with us, we nearly always have our final Communion there.
Where we did visit was the small military cemetery in Passendale itself. It was here, 27 years ago, that I heard God telling me not to waste my life, and just to look at the 100s of 1000s of names of men whose lives had been cut cruelly short. I was working for National Westminster Bank then, with quite decent prospects, and I had already been turned down by the Church of England's national selection conference, having been encouraged to go forward by my sponsoring Diocese. Never again was I going to do that! 2 years later I was back at a selection conference, and the outcome was completely different.
27 years ago at that spot, I prayed on my own (the first time then for many years) - today all I wanted to do was pray on my own, despite Kathryn's kind suggestion that she prays with me thanking God for my ministry. I declined. I was very cold, but I had my own agenda which was not about praying for me, but for others. I prayed at that spot for all those people, at least those who I could remember who had caused me stress and grief in my 22 years of ordained ministry in 8 parishes and 1 prison. I simply gave thanks to God for giving me the priveldge of ministering to them, even if things didn't seem to work out, or don't seem to be working out.
I have prayed for the many other wonderful people who I have encountered, and my wife, children and grandchildren, and my many wonderful friends everyday this week, and I will continue to do so, long after my Sabbatical is over!
After this, and a quick re-visit to a German Cemetery, cut short by the bitter coldness, the three of us went into the centre of Ypres. It was by now 5.30pm, and as I was not just cold, but very tired, I had a short sleep in the car.
Then it was dinner in a very nice restaurant in the Market Square in Ypres, followed by the most moving ceremony, which I have been to so many times before, but which I always find different, and never fail to be moved by it, and that is the daily ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres at 8pm. The main road is closed, the buglers bugle, 2 minutes silence, and often wreaths are laid. I was surprised how many people were there tonight on this bitterly cold day.
Another very good day. Up until today, I have found God in the humour, in the laughter, and in the fun of the trip.
Today, I found him in the starkness of what I saw, and what I felt.
I have written two poems today, Mark and Kathryn tell me they are a bit bleak, a bit stark. OK so perhaps they are, but they need more work doing on them, and then you can decide when I blog them. But my reflection is that God must be there with us in that darkness - even in my own darkness when my right kidney was removed, even though at that time, I found him distant.
Tomorrow going to find places where soldiers were "shot at dawn", and also 2 places where fathers and sons lay near each other. This week is showing me life in all it's extremes, and so far, God is most definately there in the midst of it all.
Goodnight for another day!
God bless!!
