Tomorrow

Malmesbury Abbey is familiar with conflict. In the year 939AD King Athelstan the Glorious, the first King of all England, was buried here. Athelstan had led his English and Welsh forces in a decisive victory over the Scottish, Danish, Norse and Irish at the Battle of Brunanburh; and he chose to be buried here alongside the men of Malmesbury that fought alongside him. His tomb, a later medieval offering, is in the North Aisle, just behind the organ. Much later, on 21st March 1643 the English Civil War raged just outside the doors of the Abbey; you can see the cannon and musket shot holes on the wall to the left of the porch. I think we beat Tetbury that day. And it’s not all ancient history: just 10 days ago the Abbey was filled with the serving military of 9 Logistics from Buckley Barracks, as, in a service led by Padre Richard Priest from our own 4pm congregation,  we marked with prayer and worship their safe return from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

But of course for many, whose lives were lost and affected by the global wars of the 20th century and the ongoing conflicts of the 21st century, Malmesbury Abbey is an annual place of remembrance, a place of profound sorrow—as it is this weekend. For civilians like myself, it is possible to feel something of a fraud. Personally, I have no experience to remember, I’m unfamiliar with the reality of battle. I don’t know what it feels like to serve in the military, what it feels like to have that final embrace before you fly out, or what if feels like to put your foot on the soil of another nation dressed in the uniform of your own country. So how do I remember?

Perhaps I remember by considering my peaceable life, and the democratic governance  of our nation, and the eyes that didn’t live to see it. And I hold before myself the words of the Kohima Epitaph and remember tomorrow:

When you go home

tell them of us and say,

for your tomorrow

we gave our today