Last night I watched the annual British Legion Festival of Remembrance on BBC1.  Clive Myrie introducing it had an authority and authenticity that comes only from having been there, as a 'war correspondent'.  The whole thing was reflective, speaking of the human cost of conflict, and recalling events whose anniversaries are this year.

Especially moving for me was the wheel of names from the 2006 Iraq conflict, knowing that somewhere on that wheel was a name I recognised, a young man of 19 who came from the small town where I had my first pastorate.  I recalled the shock that filled this small place, the phone call from the local journalist who then visited the church the next Sunday.  Adam Morris, born, so I discovered, in Northampton, growing up in Leicestershire, dying in Iraq; a vague connection with the church I served because he had, a few years earlier, been part of the youth club.

I found my thoughts turning to others I know, or have known, who served in the armed forced, or who lost loved ones.

I remember L whose brother T was in the RAF and whose plane went missing, never to be recovered, during the Second World War, and how this made very real the names on the church's Roll of Honour.

I remember J who served in the first gulf war, and died too young, following a civilian accident in the church he belonged to.

I think of C, A, H, A and N, all of whom have served (or do serve) as military chaplains, and who have seen and heard things I will never experience, and of the toll it can - and does - take on their own health and well-being.

I think of K, who I knew as a teenager, who served as a medical orderly in Iraq, and who, assuming everything worked out for her as she hoped, is now a vicar somewhere.

And I think of the horror that still goes on, of young adults sent to violent places, of the needless deaths of children and adults, of the loss of habitats and ecosystems and the so-called 'wisdom' that allows these things to happen.  There are no easy answers, so simple, universal solutions, so all I can do is remember, and allow that remembering to inform my own living.

Here is the link to my blog post from twenty years ago

Kyrie eleison.

Lest we forget.