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Lenten Reflections: Bless-ed Peacemakers – Day 39

DAY 39 – AM I NOT MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

(A short story by John Skinner)

    

Thomas was a bricklayer, like his father

and his father before him.


    He was a good man – easy to get on with

and difficult to find offensive, and whose

obvious shortcomings were more than

compensated for by

his ability never to

speak wrong of others.


    He loved his wife and adored his

children, and worked hard to give

them a secure life together, the type

of security he had known as a child.

Thomas had been worried recently.

It was three months since he had known

regular work. The recession had been

particularly cruel to the building trade.

He was therefore relieved to be offered

a new job. Even that job might

only last a few months,

putting up the final stages of the

government correction centre.

It was

strange work, unlike anything he had

known

before, as he was used to putting

up houses for people to live in, which

had given him a lot of pleasure.  The

special correction block, on which

he worked, was unimaginative in design,

rows of windowless, flat-roofed

rooms with white tiled interiors, not unlike

shower rooms, except the only inlet pipes

carried gas, not water.

This disturbed Thomas a little, but he

comforted himself with the thought that

he was only doing his job, and

it was not his

responsibility to be concerned

with such details. Anyway his mates didn’t

talk about it, although he had to admit there

was an uneasy atmosphere on site.


    It was some months later, after the work

was over, that he just happened to mention

it to a stranger in a pub, no serious

conversation, just passing time.


    They came for him in the middle of the

night, men without faces who had long ago

given up the right to be called by name.  At

first he felt it was a mistake, they’d come to

the wrong house, the wrong man, it was only

when he realised that it was no mistake,

it was him they had come for, that he
trembled with fear and cried out his

innocence, wasn’t he a good family man,

a hard worker, easy to get on with, never

passing judgement on other people’s
affairs?

    They took him away silently, with only time

to collect a few personal belongings and say

goodbye to his wife.  He pleaded with them as

they drove off into the night, looking for some

support or comfort, but he received no flicker

of a response.  He too became silent, and began

to hope for the best.  Perhaps he would be home

again tomorrow, for after all, what had he done?

It was only when they reached the gates of the

correction centre that his fear again began to

surface, and panic gripped him. They led him

from the car, along the narrow pathway to the

special correction block, which he had helped

to build. Even as they closed the door of the

windowless room in which they put him, he

cried out his innocence,

“I’m not guilty, not

guilty.”

But soon all that could be heard

was the gentle hissing of gas.


                   –   JOHN SKINNER,4

[ from HEARTCRY magazine. ]


SUPPORTING THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE NORTHUMBRIA COMMUNITY

We are grateful to all who continue to give generously to the life and work of the Northumbria Community and pray that, as we face significant financial challenges ahead, there will be enough to sustain the work that God has for us to do.

If you would like to make a donation to support the life and work of the Northumbria Community, having participated in a retreat or event or enjoyed some of our resources, please follow the link below. If you are UK tax payer, please do consider giving on a more regular basis, by filling in a Gift Aid form. You can find out more information about giving HERE.


Lenten Reflections: Bless-ed Peacemakers – Day 38

DAY 38

Years ago Jeremiah the prophet

spelt out the cry,

‘Is it nothing to you,

all you who pass by?’

It’s there in ‘Lamentations’

to be read by you or I.


Sometimes we resent

the heartlessness

and apathy around us,

but more often

we experience it

from the other side.

We have

‘compassion

fatigue’

for the cries are too many!


I don’t feel identified

because the other is too other!

Abuse, injustice, violence

– even genocide

seems a headline or statistic.

I cross over

            and pass by on the other side,

as if it’s nothing,

shrugging, ‘I can do nothing.’

 ‘Go away, you are too many,’

I say inside.

Yet even my enemy

turns out to

be

somebody just like me

if I happen to look that person

in the eyes.


Letting go gets easier

if the heart is opened wide,

but then what happens next

may be unpredictable

at least for the rest of this life….

                          [ – Andy Raine ]


SUPPORTING THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE NORTHUMBRIA COMMUNITY

We are grateful to all who continue to give generously to the life and work of the Northumbria Community and pray that, as we face significant financial challenges ahead, there will be enough to sustain the work that God has for us to do.

If you would like to make a donation to support the life and work of the Northumbria Community, having participated in a retreat or event or enjoyed some of our resources, please follow the link below. If you are UK tax payer, please do consider giving on a more regular basis, by filling in a Gift Aid form. You can find out more information about giving HERE.


Lenten Reflections: Bless-ed Peacemakers – Day 37

DAY 37

‘May God in his mercy
lead us through these times;
but above all,
may he lead us to himself.’

  – DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1906-1945)

Bonhoeffer became a resistance worker,
and was part of a failed plot to
assassinate Hitler.
But it was his evasion of the call-up
for military service that led to his
arrest. He wrote to his parents and his
fiancee when he was allowed to do so.
He supported and prayed for his
fellow-prisoners.
Perhaps he died because of his political
convictions and not as a Christian martyr,
but he would have said that there was no
distinction between the two.

‘If I sit next to a madman
as he drives a car into a group
of innocent bystanders, I can’t,
as a Christian, simply wait for
the catastrophe, then comfort
the wounded and bury the dead.
I must try to wrestle the
steering wheel out of the hands
of the driver.’

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer


SUPPORTING THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE NORTHUMBRIA COMMUNITY

We are grateful to all who continue to give generously to the life and work of the Northumbria Community and pray that, as we face significant financial challenges ahead, there will be enough to sustain the work that God has for us to do.

If you would like to make a donation to support the life and work of the Northumbria Community, having participated in a retreat or event or enjoyed some of our resources, please follow the link below. If you are UK tax payer, please do consider giving on a more regular basis, by filling in a Gift Aid form. You can find out more information about giving HERE.


Lenten Reflections: Bless-ed Peacemakers – Day 36

DAY 36

‘The just war theory

should be filed

in the same drawer

that contains

the flat earth theory.’

Bishop Carroll Dozier

We have spoken for thousands of years of

the just war,

and we almost speak about it

as if war

were something that emanates

from the Gospel.

The fact is that this whole theology

of just war must be presented

as something for a world in transition.

The coming of the kingdom

will never take place

if we do not begin

to become instruments of God

in replacing the old order

and the old methods of struggle

with Gospel-inspired methods:

creative,

active,

non-violent means.

This has always been my position

within the Church and everywhere,

but it was also

the responsibility of the Church

to promote and educate our people

about such methods.

I defended the right of

this Nicaraguan people

to take up arms to free themselves,

as I defend this nation’s

right to defend itself

from the aggression today.

But we must be clear

that these methods

are not Gospel methods. . .

Father Miguel D’Escoto,

[ Foreign Minister, Nicaragua]


SUPPORTING THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE NORTHUMBRIA COMMUNITY

We are grateful to all who continue to give generously to the life and work of the Northumbria Community and pray that, as we face significant financial challenges ahead, there will be enough to sustain the work that God has for us to do.

If you would like to make a donation to support the life and work of the Northumbria Community, having participated in a retreat or event or enjoyed some of our resources, please follow the link below. If you are UK tax payer, please do consider giving on a more regular basis, by filling in a Gift Aid form. You can find out more information about giving HERE.


Lenten Reflections: Bless-ed Peacemakers – Day 35

DAY 35

“One of Christ’s essential commands was:

Passivity at any price.

Suffer dishonour and disgrace,

but never resort to arms.

Be bullied, be outraged,

be killed; but do not kill…

And am I not

myself a conscientious objector

with a very seared conscience?”

– Wilfred Owen

from ‘At a Calvary near the Ancre’:

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.

In this war He too lost a limb,

but His disciples hide apart;

and now the Soldiers bear with Him.

As he wrote in 1918,

his motives for enlisting

included his desire to write

of the experience of war:

‘I came out in order to help these boys

—directly by leading them

as well as an officer can;

indirectly, by watching their sufferings

that I may speak of them

as well as a pleader can.’

‘ I know I shall be killed.

But it’s the only place

I can make my protest from.’

In September 1918,

Owen returned to the front

during the final stages of the war.

He fought a fierce battle

and was awarded the

Military Cross for his bravery.

Owen’s death is especially tragic

as the armistice was declared

just one week after his death

resulting in the end of World War 1,

therefore around the time

his family back home learned

of his death, they also found out

the War was over.


SUPPORTING THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE NORTHUMBRIA COMMUNITY

We are grateful to all who continue to give generously to the life and work of the Northumbria Community and pray that, as we face significant financial challenges ahead, there will be enough to sustain the work that God has for us to do.

If you would like to make a donation to support the life and work of the Northumbria Community, having participated in a retreat or event or enjoyed some of our resources, please follow the link below. If you are UK tax payer, please do consider giving on a more regular basis, by filling in a Gift Aid form. You can find out more information about giving HERE.