Remembrance Sunday Evening Prayer – 12 November 2017

As we continue to move my folks from the Independent Living Condo to Assisted Living, I find myself going down memory lane. A year ago, we helped wrap up the move from the house I grew up in to the Condo. This picture was hanging in the Condo. I took it down today to bring it to the new apartment on what Americans call Veteran’s Day and our British friends call Remembrance Day. Today was Remembrance Sunday and the last time I helped to commemorate this somber day of reflection was in 2005. As the Wing Chaplain at RAF Mildenhall, home of the 100th Air Refueling Wing (our heritage traces back to the WW2 100th Bomb Group who flew B-17’s out of RAF Thorpe Abbot near Dickleburg where this ceremony in 2005 took place), I took part in the ceremony. I remember laying the wreath in memory of the US Army Air Forces members who lost their lives in WW2 and praying for the dead and the living from all wars.

The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow 

My God, when will we ever learn?

Politicians who have nothing to lose send the children of “others” to war

Corporate “fat cats” grow rich while the blood of the common folk spills

A warmongering mentality of the privileged elite

Drowns out the suffering of the ones who serve, bleed, and die

Self-serving bureaucrats ignore the real pain families suffer

A flag and a gesture seem to suffice in their minds

How far we have strayed from your Holy calling

To Do Justice

To Love Kindness &Mercy 

To Walk Humbly with you, O God

To Love you, Lord, with all of our being

To Love our Neighbors as ourselves 

Lord, as this Remembrance Day closes

As this Veteran’s Day closes

Help us to remember the true cost of war 

Help us to honor and support the widows and the orphans

Help us to work towards the day

When nation shall not lift up sword against nation

When we shall study war no more 

Lord, in your mercy, hear this prayer 

Dona Nobis Pacem et in Terra 

Grant Us Peace on Earth 

A wee prayer from the heart of your weary Padre…