Updated 29 October, 2001

Remembrance Sunday - 11/11/07

Theme: Remembrance

Reading

Job 19: 23-27a

Preparation

Collect a selection of diaries and journals into which we can make entries - maybe an engagement diary, a five year diary, a teacher's planning documents, a gardener's diary, a travel log…If any of the classes keep diaries, have a copy of the books they use (but don't have anyone's personal diary work).

Also collect a selection of diaries or journals that other people have written e.g. Anne Frank, Adrian Mole, Bridget Jones. Some authors e.g. Jacqueline Wilson, often write both in the first person and as if the action is unfolding before the writer's eyes as well as the readers; although these books are not 'dated' like a diary, the method of writing is similar.

It would be good also to have a copy of poems by some of the War Poets
A poppy, a candle, an empty diary

Introduction

Place an empty diary on the worship table ( or whatever the school uses)

Ask the group why people keep diaries. This question shouldn't be too difficult to get some answers. For some, especially busy people, it might be to remember what they have to do that week or that year. It might help them to be in the right place at the right time, and to be organised enough to have done the work. For others, it might be to remind them of what happened at a certain time - a travel log will tell them what they liked about somewhere - but also the things or the places they didn't like, so that they know to avoid them next time.

A gardener's diary will tell them when they did certain jobs in the garden, what plants appeared when, and help them plan the garden for the coming year. A 'journal ' type diary is sometimes a special friend, to whom the writer can tell everything, even the things they can't tell a real friend; sometimes people use them to record everything that is going on in their life and sometimes the author uses them to record the very special or very difficult moments. Often just writing things down helps someone begin to make sense of what is going on.

All diaries, in one way or another, help the person who keeps them to make sense of some part of their life - through organisation, through planning, through beginning to understand or accept

Then ask the group why people read the diaries of others. This is a bit harder. There are often moments in children's films and TV shows when one character reads another's diary, and is often shocked by what they learn. Children have a strong sense of privacy, and protection of that. Sometimes it's important for a person's secretary to find out where their boss is. Teachers' planning documents are read by governors or inspectors, to see how the teachers plan to teach a subject. We might want to learn something about a country or a garden we want to visit. Sometimes we want to find out what someone was like or why they acted in a certain way- so if their diaries are made available, we can learn about them. Maybe we want someone special to read our own diary, so that they know how we feel or felt. We read other people's diaries to learn something.

The Diary of Anne Frank is a good example of the two different ways that diaries are used. For Anne it was a chance to record what it was like to be a young Jewish girl under the Nazis, living through all the terror and trying to make sense of it in her life. For us who read it, we see the courage of both the young girl and also of all who help the family. It acts as a reminder of all that went on, a reminder of how people treated other human beings, and a reminder to us all never to allow something like that to happen again.

Message

The book of Job tells the story of a man who had all sorts of disasters happen in his life. All his animals were killed, his land was taken away, even all his children died, and then he himself became sick. He tried to make sense of all of this, and to ask why it all happened. His friends came to visit him, and offered various suggestions, but they weren't much use. They kept saying that it must be something he'd done wrong and he was now being punished for it. Job knows this isn't right and cries out

'O that my words were written down!
O that they were inscribed in a book!
O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock forever.'

He wants to record his words -he wants a diary! He wants this to make sense of what is happening, but also so that others can read it. They will be able to see the whole picture and know that what he is saying is true. But he also wants to record the great hope that he has during all that happens 'I know that my Redeemer lives,' This remains the hope that he holds on to, that helps him to make sense and to get through the difficult times. It becomes a sort of light to help him.
Place the candle on the worship table

Some of those who have faced war have kept diaries. Others drew pictures. Some wrote poems about the things that happened and the things they saw, and asked questions about what it meant. Read 'Breakfast' by Wilfrid Gibson, as an example of a sort of 'diary entry' poem.

'Breakfast' by Wilfrid Gibson

We ate our breakfast lying on our backs
Because the shells were screeching overhead.
I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread
That Hull United would beat Halifax
When Jimmy Stainthorpe played full-back instead
Of Billy Bradford. Ginger raised his head
And cursed, and took the bet, and dropt back dead.
We ate our breakfast lying on our backs
Because the shells were screeching overhead.

Wilfrid Gibson wrote this during the First World War - nearly 90 years ago now. Millions of soldiers, mostly young men, died during the years of that war.

At the end of the war another poet wrote

Have you forgotten yet?…
Look down, and swear by the slain of the war that you'll never forget.
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget

'Aftermath' Siegfried Sassoon March 1919

Also at the end of that war, in the fields in France and Belgium, where most of the dead had been killed, poppies grew. The poppy became the sort of shorthand symbol for all those who had fought, all those who could remember the fighting, all those whose son and fathers and brothers never returned from the war - of the hope that it would never happen again, of the hope that people would find a different way to live with one another. It also became a shorthand symbol for all those who weren't there, who read the diaries and poems and saw the pictures and never wanted the same thing to happen.

Since then we have had other wars. We had the war that Anne Frank lived in, and the poppy has also become a shorthand symbol for all that we have since learnt, through people's diaries, of went on in some countries before that war, and the courage of people to give up their lives to stop terrible things happening to others.
Sometimes the wars we hear about are very confusing, and people have died trying to help others live in peace. The poppy reminds us of their love for others.
Today, we are living in another war, with a sort of video diary unfolding every day if we watch the television news. We have seen terrible things happen to people in the United States, and also in Afghanistan. The television acts a bit like our own diary, as we all try to understand all that is happening.

Place the poppy on the worship table

We might never have time to read all the diaries that were written, and we might never get round to writing our own, but the poppy is our shorthand symbol
It is a promise that we will never forget what has happened; it is a sign of thankfulness for people's love and courage and bravery; it is a token of peace, that we will try not to let terrible things happen again; and today, if we are worried or afraid by all that is happening, it is also a sign of hope for us. Job said 'I know that my Redeemer lives'. We have God's promise that, however bad things are, he is always with us.

Prayer

Light the candle and have a time of silence

Lead me from death to life,
from falsehood to truth;
lead me from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead me from hate to love,
from war to peace;
let peace fill our hearts,
our lives and our world. Amen