Monday Music Appreciation #42 for Remembrance Day -- In Paradisum from Fauré's Requiem

I'd never heard Fauré's Requiem until Friday night, and with 200 voices from four choirs -- the Richard Eaton Singers, Chorale Saint-Jean, the University of Alberta's Concert Choir and Madrigal Singers -- and some wonderful soloists, I was blown away. It was a beautiful thing to hear on this Remembrance Day weekend, and at the end of it, the audience held silence a few moments longer than usual before breaking into a standing ovation. Long enough for me to breathe, "Wow!" and take another deep breath in and out.

Here is a beautiful version of In Paradisum from 2013, a video of the Royal Choral Society recorded at St. Giles, Cripplegate, near the Barbican in London. I tried to find a video with orchestra and 200 voices, but this was the largest choir I could discover on YouTube, so you'll have to imagine what it would be like to hear it with twice to three times as many singers and a full orchestra to boot. Just amazing.

In honour of those who have fallen in the World Wars that we remember today -- may the angels indeed lead them into paradise -- and with a deep desire for peace on our planet, I leave this with you. 

Remembering them

We've marked Remembrance Day in many different ways over the years, from visiting City Hall's cenotaph to holding our ears against the 21-gun salute at the Legislature grounds to witnessing the indoor parade of veterans from the Butterdome bleachers at the U of A. But I think we've found our favourite way to remember with the small crowd that gathered at the north end of Ainsworth Dyer Bridge at 11 a.m. for the past two years.

Today was a sunny Remembrance Day. Lee and I parked in Gold Bar Park and walked over the Ainsworth Dyer Bridge across the North Saskatchewan, reaching the quiet crowd waiting in Rundle Park on the other side.

The ceremony is simple. A pastor begins with a blessing, reads a scripture of lament and one of hope "...they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks...". Then the names of 158 Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan are read out four at at time, and members of the crowd come forth with small wooden crosses emblazoned with the soldiers' names, and stand them in the snow. The crosses were made by Aart Van Sloten, the father of Ainsworth Dyer's fiancee.

Standing in the snow, watching families, friends and members of the military press the crosses into the ground and remember lost soldiers with a nod or a salute, is a powerful thing because it makes the sacrifice of our veterans more tangible and the world's need for peace more real.

Once the crosses were set, taps, one minute of silence and reveille were played. We heard "They shall not grow old..." and Flanders' Fields, and everyone present sang O Canada.

Simple and powerful. One way to show our gratitude and respect for those who died in one of the many Canadian involvements in global conflicts, and our hope for a future filled with peace.

Another day to remember

Today we remember bravery, pray for all the casualties of war, and ask wisdom for the world...

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is no a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower 

God, show us the way to peace.

+Amen.

Remembering in 2014

Remembrance Day is even more poignant and solemn this year, thanks to our trip to France and Belgium this summer. We spent July 3rd on Vimy Ridge and in the tunnels and trenches around it, and we visited the In Flanders Fields Museum and the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres on July 11th. Our visits to these places made war more real to our girls -- and to us.

Perhaps what makes this year's observance of Remembrance Day most heart-rending is our conversation with Gaby, our dear friend who lives in present day Flanders. Lee recalled him telling a story the first time they met about how he had to guard a bridge during World War II. After our day in Ypres, I invited him to tell us about his memory of that time, but instead he told us about his father, who fought in the trenches right to the end of the first world war. Gaby said that even though the Armistice was signed on November 11th, 1918 at 11 a.m., the news did not reach his father's regiment until later in the day, just after his father's best friend died, one of the last military casualties in the trenches of World War I.

We sat in silence for a few moments after he told that story. How many others like it he could share, we'll probably never know.

War is the worst of human-made disasters. It is estimated that over 40 million military personnel died in the two world wars. They and soldiers from the many conflicts since are remembered every year at solemn ceremonies at different times of the year in different countries.

But who remembers the more than 62 million civilians who also died, some through military action, others through resulting incarceration, famine and disease? Not to mention the soldiers and civilians who were injured and traumatized to the point that they couldn't go on with normal life? And then there's the decimation of the lands where war was made... more than 65 years after the last world war, we could still see the remnants of shell holes and concrete bunkers in Northern France.

My many days of remembrance this year have me thinking more deeply about how war can never bring about true peace. Witness how Canada's going to war in the Middle East brought about the deaths of two servicemen here in the last few weeks. Since then, I've been thinking that, during our Remembrance Days, we should remember not only those who died in our wars, but also reflect on peace and our role in it.

Last year we attended the Remembrance Day ceremony at the University of Alberta, but this year, I plan to join the Edmonton Ecumenical Peace Network in its prayer service and Public Prayer Walk for Peace. It starts at McDougall United Church (10025 101 Street) at 6 p.m. on Remembrance Day, well after the 11 a.m. moment of silence that we'll attend at our Legislature grounds.

And I also honour our war dead by posting these pictures from Vimy, Ypres and the Menin Gate. It was still summer daylight when we were there to observe the Last Post on July 11th, but it will be dark this time of year.

God bless all those who have died in war, and grant us peace.

God restores us

Tonight is our annual Taizé Prayer for Peace. With Remembrance Day on Tuesday, it’s important to reflect on our world’s past conflicts, not to glorify our military, but to recall their sacrifices and to pray that peace and justice come to the trouble spots around the globe, and that they live in our own lives and hearts.

You’re invited to come and join us in our prayer for peace this evening at 7 p.m. at Strathearn United Church (8510 95 Avenue). A friend of mine was telling me yesterday that it has been proven that meditative practice actually has the ability to alter the state of certain things – so Alfred Lord Tennyson’s comment, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of,” is truer than he knew.

Tonight we’ll be singing the beautiful chant in the video below in its original Italian, reminding ourselves that God does not push us away, but restores us through holy presence. The icon you see in the video, taken from the Bawit monastery excavation in Egypt, is now housed at the Louvre. It’s an image of Christ and Abbot Mena. I love how Jesus has his arm around his friend the Abbot, who was living in a dangerous time. I like to think that Christ has his arms around all those living in dangerous situations today, bringing them peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzSaV5IasyM

Il Signore ti ristora.
Dio non allontana.
Il Signore viena ad incontrarti.
Viene ad incontrarti...

We remember -- all over the world

Every evening at 8 p.m. in the city of Ypres, Belgium, our Canadian war dead are remembered along with other soldiers of the Commonwealth. The last post is played at the Menin Gate, a monument that holds the names of 54,896 soldiers who were killed in Flanders and have no other known grave. I have been fortunate to visit the Menin Gate for the evening ceremony, which was attended by a handful of people rather than the crowds in the video below.

During the German occupation in WWII, the playing of the Last Post was not allowed, but the very evening of liberation, September 6, 1944, the people of Ieper (the city's Flemish name) picked up their daily remembrance where they left off. Thanks to supercanadiandude for posting this video (and several others on the Remembrance Day theme).

Today we remember our war dead, our veterans, and those presently serving in places of war. Our family attended the indoor ceremony at the University of Alberta, where those who died, veterans and present day service men were remembered and honoured. God bless and keep them, and may we all strive for peace.

Sunday prayers for peace

Today is the anniversary of the end of the First World War, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. In Canada, we call it Remembrance Day. When I was growing up, it was all about reciting "In Flanders Fields," watching old soldiers march or wheel past with medals decorating their chests, and imagining life in the trenches long before my generation of Canadians was born. But now, it's about so much more, with many peacekeeping missions in the last 40 years and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All present generations are affected by these wars, even though our country hasn't felt the full brunt of armed conflict within its boundaries for hundreds of years. Knowing people involved in or touched by war affects us all.

One evening two summers ago, when I pulled up to a parking booth, the attendant gave me my ticket with the comment, "be sure to enjoy your life today." I thanked her, and as there was no one else around, asked the reason behind her comment. Her eyes filled, she thanked me for asking, and she told me about her son, who had been killed in Afghanistan. The tears poured down her cheeks as she shared about Sgt. George Miok, a junior high school teacher who had volunteered for the reserves, and how she was heartbroken when he never returned. It turns out that our school Vice Principal knew George, and was on staff at St. Cecilia's with him, and when this letter arrived at the school. It makes George almost as real to me as his mom's tears did. And now there are so many stories like hers.

Today, I'm also thinking in particular about my friends from Syria, whose country is embroiled in a terrible civil war that is being fed by outsiders and nations who often don't even know the people who are affected by their illegal arms shipments and political sanctions. Today, around the world, many words will be spoken about peace as an ideal for which we strive. But peace has to be more than an ideal in Syria and other places like it for the sake of those who live there, and for their families far away. Peace needs to be a reality.

On this Remembrance Day we remember that there are far more losers than winners in any war. But if everyone on this planet thought of everyone as a brother or sister, and gave to those in need, everyone would win.

Tonight, our Taize Prayer service at St. Luke's Anglican Church will be for peace. Dona la pace, Signore. Give us peace, O God, we who trust in you. And make us servants of your peace. Amen.

11/11/11... Remembering... for the sake of peace

The year after university, I travelled with a performing group, and we spent a fair bit of time in Belgium, where many Canadians lost their lives in WWI to the insanity known as mustard gas. One of my host families took me on a war tour around their area, and across the French border to Vimy Ridge, and it was probably one of the most profound days of that year of my life. Seeing all those gravestones standing row on row in Flanders fields, and then standing on the Ridge and looking up at the sorrowing women of the towering white granite monument on the only Canadian soil in Europe -- 91 hectares where 11, 285 Canadian trees and shrubs live to honour the young men who fought and died there -- I suddenly saw the real importance of Remembrance Day.

It's not about glorifying the fallen, or cheering on our veterans, though we do thank them for the sacrifices they have made. It's about remembering those who have died, and about the true yearning we all have that no more people will die because of senseless war. It is our deep longing for the best alternative to war... peace.

Today, I pray that humanity will find non-violent ways to solve our disagreements, and that those who are in uniform will soon be able to come home. I'll admit I'm something of an idealist, but I think that, given human history, it's better than being a militarist.

If you are remembering for the sake of peace, too, you might like to check this out:

www.ceasefire.ca

Dona nobis pacem...

Remembrance Day

In Canada today, we remember our war dead with ceremonies across the country. This Trews video shows one of the most current ways we honour our heroes. God bless them all, and may we find ways to peace.