Love & War

³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:31-35

 

At a leadership conference for handpicked sailors, a lecturer from the ANU made the commented that the reported incidence at Abu Grahib prison by US military personnel couldn’t happen in the Australian forces because we were so well trained to behave otherwise.

 

After a moment of mouth open bewilderment, I spoke up and suggested that he was either being reckless in his confidence in our troops (us sitting in the room) or he was deluded into believing that we were, somehow, superhuman and therefore would not act irrationally or emotionally if the circumstances were right.  Both of which I knew from my understanding of myself to be possible.

 

On this eve of ANZAC Day, arguably Australia’s national day, let us keep an informed mind about war and those who find themselves involved in them. War is not rational, it is irrational. Killing others, especially your own, to achieve a politically ordained solution to an intractable problem is irrational. To ask people who find themselves in the midst of the subsequent conflict to act rationally is irrational. The war fought in our country for control over the land and its resources, the unnamed and unremembered war, was irrational. The wars fought on other shores for the political and power needs of others have been irrational. The wars we continue to fight are more so.

 

Why do we expect people who find themselves caught up in the big business of mass  killing not to behave irrationally on the ground just as those who are behind the scenes, governments, corporations and media do? Why do we elevate these young men and women to a level of sainthood they never sought and can never live up to?

 

War is abominable. Being caught up in it at the ground level is horrific and can never be forgotten. Society appropriates war and the outcomes of war for its own purposes, to give meaning to an event that was often a failure but was so costly it needs to be elevated to the spiritual to allow us to live with its memory.  This ANZAC Day it is worthwhile unpacking the fairy-tale and taking a peek at the legend for what it is, the disastrous plans of misguided men who were willing to sacrifice fellow men, women and children to feed their own political, economic and power delusions, be they on the shores of Gallipoli or on the plains across the states of Australia.

 

The truth is we live between betrayal and denial, between upholding our values and respecting others, between hate and love. In todays shortened Gospel reading Jesus gives the well recognised, oft heard call for love: “³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” In light of tomorrow James Hillman says we have tried brotherly love for 2000 years and it has failed, humans have an insatiable appetite for war.

 

It is interesting to note where John places Jesus command to love. Paul S. Berge notes, "In the midst of his betrayal by Judas and denial by Peter, Jesus calls the community to live in love with one another, a pattern expressed in his own life and death."

 It sits squarely between the betrayal of Judas who had, according to John, just left the room to carry out his dastardly deed; and the denial of Peter, the denial that abandoned his teacher and companion to face the foe alone. One does not hear this command and behaves badly, the other behaves badly even though he heard it. Both had been well trained and taught by Jesus. Both had seen the evidence of Jesus identity and mission. Both had participated in the various miracles and events, eyewitnesses to the capacity Jesus had for his fellow humanity.

 

Yet, when the bullets started to fly, they failed him spectacularly. One went over to the other side, deserted to the enemy and the either denied any involvement or knowledge and refused to stand up when he was called upon to do so.

 

Love, love in the style of Jesus is tough love. It is the hardest thing to do. To stay fully engaged in relationship with others and self in the midst of life takes a resolve only grace can give. We, like Judas and Peter, fail to keep this commandment, not just once nor 7 times, but 70 times 7. Regardless, it is a our cornerstone, without which we find ourselves slipping into despondency and permanent failure.

 

The new commandment is to love one another as I have loved you – accepting and respectful of all that goes to make up who you are. Jesus love for both Peter and Judas remains despite the disappointment. Jesus love recognises we are not perfect but that we do endeavour to live out his commandment.

 

In the midst of the chaos of life in the world, the chaos that sits with in us as we deal with the stuff that comes our way, and the chaos that arrives unscripted and unwanted to turn our rational world into an irrational world.

 

As we unpack the legend of ANZAC and all the wars fought either side of the Gallipoli encounter we discover people who stay true to Jesus’ call. They carry out acts of bravery, sacrifice, comfort and camaraderie with those they stand beside and those they stand against. They do the incredibly rational in the midst of the unthinkably irrational. They put legs on Jesus command in circumstances most of us would find impossible.

 

Jesus command is a command to love in tough circumstances and to love those who are tough to love, particularly ourselves. It is to exhibit such love without violence and to find a way to reconcile us to others in the midst of the irrationality of their circumstance and ours. It is how we engage with people who have hurt, isolated and alienated us. It is how we engage with those who oppress, control and incarcerate others. It is the way we get on with creating life in the midst of a society committed to death.

 

How do we do that? There are no 5 steps to success, but we do begin with a clear mind and understanding of who we are and what we are capable of. It then follows that we work to retain that understanding in all our engagements with others. Love is the capacity to retain our humanity and to ensure others retain theirs despite differences, conflicts and blame.

 

Jesus lived such a paradigm into our imagination. We are to live that paradigm into the imagination of the world, starting right where we are. 

ANZAC DAY - An Act of Three-way Remembering

ANZAC DAY is a day for remembering those who have given their lives, their youth and their future for our country.  ANZAC DAY is a day for remembering those who went away to foreign lands and returned different, changed, not the same, to live with rememberings they would rather forget. ANZAC DAY is a day to remember the families of those who never came back and those who did.

Remembering is an important part of personal, family and society's story. We build our story about who we are, what we believe, what we value on remembering and when we remember we do it in three ways. Or perhaps I could say remembering has three different views.

The view back, into the past. We remember back to put a story around what happened before now. Remembering back helps to make sense of situations which often are difficult to make sense of. War is one of those things and today helps us to remember the individuals, on both sides, who endure the horror unimaginable by us this far away. ANZAC DAY helps us to remember back and to bring those stories, those faces, those names forward into our memory today.  Without the remembering back we can make no sense of it at all.

The second view is the present view. We remember now. We can not change the past. We can not bring them back. We can not stop the wars which already have been fought.We can say thanks to them for the possibility of now, of what we have, freedom, hope, love, possibilities and remember. We look around us and see others just like us, perhaps ethnically and religiously different, but with the same aspirations and hopes, families and friends, wishes and dreams as us and we take note.  If we remember the now we all not revisit the past.

The third view, is remembering the future.  It is not all about the past and the present, but about what we build for the future.  We cannot build a future if we fail to remember the past and the present. All we will do is repeat our history of violence and war over and over and over again. Remembering the future reminds us that what we do now, what we value now, what we aspire to know, we will live with now and in the future.  The future is no accident, it is given birth by the past and the present.

My father-in-law came back from New Guinea and spoke very little about the war or the Japanese whom he fought. He Never never missed an ANZAC DAY march and always wore his medals. He resumed his business life and joined Rotary.  Through his work he develop a friendship with a Japanese man who had fought in the same place as he did, but on opposite sides, and was also a Rotarian. They wrote to each other, he hosted the business man and his wife when they visited Australia, and he maintained that relationship until he died. While they spoke little of the war to others, they shared openly and deeply with each other the horrors they endured on the battlefield. After he died, the letters and Christmas cards continued to my mother-in-law until they all passed away. That is three way remembering in action. They remembered the past, they shared the present and they paved away for a future where this wouldn't happen again, at least not between their nations.

The key foundation for Christians is this three-way remembering.  The mystery of the Christian faith is - 'Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again'. Something has happened, something is happening and something will happen.

Today, ANZAC DAY, is a day of remembering what has happened, let us use it to reinvigorate our present and empower our future. We owe at least that to the brave men and women who gave their lives to make it possible. It's up to you.

ANZAC DAWN SERVICE ADDRESS

This Dawn Service has its origins in a military routine which is still followed by the Australian Army. During battle, the half-light of dawn was one of the most favoured times for an attack. Soldiers in defensive positions were woken in the dark before dawn, so by the time first light crept across the battlefield they were awake, alert, and manning their weapons; this is still known as the 'stand-to'. As dusk is equally favourable for attacks, the stand-to was repeated at sunset.

After the First World War, returned soldiers sought the comradeship they had felt in those quiet, peaceful moments before dawn. A dawn vigil, recalling the wartime front line practice of the dawn 'stand-to', became the basis of a form of commemoration in several places after the war.

Today we come to share this moment with returned service men and women and I have been pondering why? What gets us out of bed before sunup to come and stand here and remember something that happened on a far shore in different century?

It's so long ago and so far away and for many of us it is just a story, albeit a gripping and tragic one.Yet we come, young and old, of all nationalities and faiths, to stand at this place and pay our respects for those who paid the ultimate price in a war which extracted an unmeasurable cost from the countries involved.

Why do we come? 
Do we come to remember the horror that is war? Perhaps. 
Do we come to worship heroes? They did many extraordinary acts but they would deny they were heroes and reject being worshipped as such. They were simply men and women doing what had to be done. 
Do we come out of a sense of national pride? Perhaps, but it is best we treat this emotion with great care as it can soon transform into nationalism, and in war, we have had enough of that.
Why do we come? Why do we stand to? I suspect it is out of gratitude - we are grateful for the sacrifice made by all service men and women in what ever war or conflict they served in, because by doing so they saved us from having to, they protected our lifestyle, they provided us with the freedom to be who we are today.

When we look around us and see what we have, what we have the freedom to be and do, what opportunities are there for us we are grateful for those who made it possible, for those who gave us our identity, ensured our culture and traditions and left us a legacy others are envious of.

What do they ask in return? 
That we stand to and practice gratitude in all of our relationships, contacts and dealings with others, those we share this country with regardless of where they came from or why they came here.
That we stand to and do all that we do at home, at school, at work everyday with an attitude that is grateful for the opportunity to do so; 
That we stand to and offer the opportunity for others to share in our gratitude by opening our country and hearts to those whose countries are unable to do so;
That we stand to and use every tool at our disposal to avoid war at all costs.

Why do we come? We come to say thanks digger,  thanks for having the courage to face the horror in your present moment and make room for our future. Thanks.

Lest we forget.

ANZAC DAY - LEST WE FORGET

On the morning of the 25th April 1915 Australian soldiers stopped ashore at Gallipoli Cove and into the pages of our national history. Over and over again other soldiers, sailors and airmen and women in other wars, on other shores and at great personal cost, have followed them. Their story and stories have been told and retold at occasions like this ever since.

We gather once again to hear those stories retold, some faded and a little rusty now, others as new as last year some, but the stories all have a familiar ring to them. They are the stories of ordinary young men and women who found or find themselves called upon to survive and overcome in extraordinary conditions.

When I read details of the landing at Gallipoli, the mud and stench of the Western front, the barbarity of Kokoda, the survival at Long Tan, I find my self asking: what was it that kept these soldiers going when giving up would have been so easy? Late last year I walked the Sandakan to Ranau Death March trail. A total of 2,434 men died at Sandakan, on the trail or at one of the various camps along the way. Only six survived.

As I trudged through the ankle deep red mud in extreme humidity, up steep jungle infested hills, I thought about what kept them moving forward when it would have been so easy just to walk over the edge or sit down and be shot? On one climb, which took little over an hour t9 men perished in a climb, which took them 5 hours, most completed it crawling on their knees. Why?

The answer is hope. Not hope that they would win or that it would get better. But the hope perhaps one, just one would survive to tell their story. They worked together to make that hope a reality. Pte Richard Murray and 5 others stole some rice from the cookhouse. They shared it around and hid the bag. Unfortunately their crime was discovered and they were taken away. As they stood while the Japanese officer questioned them, Keith Botterill whispered in Murray’s ear, “Don’t move or say anything, they can’t shoot us all.” Murray, sensing that they could and probably would, stepped forward and admitted to stealing the rice but said his mates had nothing to do with it. He was taken away and executed.

We know this story because one survived – Keith Botterill. Hope keeps us going forward when giving up would be so easy. Hope is doing it for your mates, being prepared to place yourself in danger so others will survive. Hope is not a wishy washy dream, a wish for something better, it is a concrete action building the future for others. We only know the story about Sandakan and the Death March, one of if not the greatest single loss of men in war by our country, because Keith Botterill lived to tell it.

Richie Murray was not a religious man, as far as I can tell, but he compares well on that score with another man who gave up his life for others and whom we remember at this time – Jesus of Nazareth.

On Richie Murrays’ grave at Labuan War Cemetery are the words:
He stepped forward to sacrifice his life for his mates.

The challenge of ANZAC Day to each of us is, could we, would we do the same?

Lest we forget.