Name - Crofton Brown

One hundred years since the Great War began.  The amazing field of poppies by the Tower of London is quite a sight.  It is not easy to know whether it is good or not.

 

It is very beautiful.

 

Should the deaths of war be commemorated by beauty though?  Would we, for example (in reverse) commemorate the birth of a baby with the ugliness of birth leftovers?  It is hard to know if beauty helps or hinders. 

 

Memorialising is so hard because we interpret everything from our own place in history.  I have been extraordinarily blessed to live through wars only on television.  Even a cursory glance at the statistics of international terrorism indicate that at its worst it is a pale reflection of the Somme, Ypres, the Blitz, Auschwitz or Hiroshima to name but a few.  What do I know of the buzzing excitement of young recruits who often well realised that they might not come home?  How can I, who sees soldier's bodies returning in ceremonial procession from the back of transport planes at RAF bases imagine the slaughter that left tens of thousands of bodies unaccounted for?

 

This morning in Church we considered each of the men memorialised on the plaque in our Chapel building,  One of them is simply among the unknown who were never buried but never came back.  Would a ceramic poppy help?  No.  What helped was that we knew his name and that he was missed by name from the community that placed the plaque in his memory.

Likewise our value to God is not our equal part of a great number.  As the Scriptures teach, our names are written in the Lamb's book of life.  We are not valued as one of the many.  We are simply, personally valued.