Dear Folks,
I am writing the Remembrance Day newsletter early this year in light of the possibility you may
wish to use some of the suggestions and resources on the actual Remembrance Day Sunday.
Remembrance Day is on a Sunday this year. It is important that all our congregations take note
of this extremely significant day in the life of our nation and indeed our world.
There are four elements to Remembrance Day commemorations.
1. An introduction which refers to wars past, current conflicts, and the sacrifice of
combatants, their families, non-combatants, and civilians. The emphasis should be on
our prayers for peace.
2. At some point there needs to be a full minute of silence. If this can be done at 11 am, all
the better.
3. It would be great to have a trumpet player or other instruments (some organs can pull
this off) who are able to play The Lament and The Reveille.
4. A prayer.
These times must not be hurried and must have a sense of respect and prayerfulness as we turn
to God for perspective, comfort and for peace.
This year has brought new perspectives for me around Remembrance Sunday. Let me share
three things in brief.
- My mother lent me a brief family history created in the mid 1980’s by a relative in England. It
traces part of my ancestry back to the 1380’s. Amongst the lives that are recorded there are
two who died in wars;- Perceval Andrew Tucker died at the age of 19 in the Battle of Jutland in WWI as his ship,
The Queen Mary, sank - Harold James Tucker died May 18, 1941 at the evacuation of the British Army at Dunkirk
- Perceval Andrew Tucker died at the age of 19 in the Battle of Jutland in WWI as his ship,
- This year marks the first time in almost fifty years that a Baptist Chaplain has received Senior
rank in the Chaplains Branch. Lt. Col. James Willox Duncan was Senior Chaplain Land Forces
Western Canada (Army) in the early 1960’s (and was master of visitation at FBC Vancouver in
the 1970’s). Lt. Col. Barbara Putnam was promoted to that rank this summer. Barb is a friend
and a wonderful example of pastor/leader. She was ordained in the Maritimes and she and her
husband Brad reside in Ottawa. Congratulations Barbara. - I’ll leave with you a paragraph from a book by Robert Lacey and his chapter on Edith Cavell
whom he describes as the daughter of an evangelical Norfolk vicar. She was shot by the German
army in the First World War for aiding and abetting wounded English and French soldiers.“Yet Edith Cavell was a war heroine with a difference. On the night before her
execution, the English chaplain in Brussels came to offer her consolation, and
found instead that the condemned woman had a powerful spiritual insight to
offer him: ‘Standing, as I do, in view of God and eternity,’ she said, ‘I realize that
patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.’”
I find Edith Cavell’s story to be appropriate and powerful. It is a reminder far past the
times of war and Remembrance Day that hatred and bitterness can have no part in our lives.
Warmly,
In Christ,
Jeremy