Abide with Me

My cold and laryngitis persist and I, wondering whether I will head to the cenotaph. It is a glorious day but I am feeling rather wonky.
As I write this I can hear band cadets across the street from Bridge St. UC practicing for their role in the ceremonies. They are playing hymns such as Abide With Me and Eternal Father Strong to Save, oldy goldies which had deep meaning in times of conflict. I recall one elderly member from St. Andrew's in Sudbury telling me that Eternal Father was played as the ship she was on as a nursing sister sailed out of St. John's harbor during the Second World War. She was always rather staid and dignified but in that moment of recollection she was emotional. Of course she was a young and probably frightened woman heading off to God knows what in foreign places.

We pray that these young people are never engaged in conflict. We pray. Do they know that the hymns they are playing are prayers of a kind? They seek God's guidance and protection in all circumstances of life, even war.

************

I did attend the cenotaph service as did many others --thousands?-- in Belleville today. Prayers and hymns and scriptures in a land where so few attend worship anymore.