the falling leaves november 1915 today as i rode by i saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree in a still afternoon when no wind whirled them whistling to the sky but thickly silently they fell like snowflakes wiping out the noon and wandered slowly thence for thinking of a gallant multitude which now all withering lay slain by no wind of age or pestilence but in their beauty strewed like snowflakes falling on the flemish clay that's the poem written by margaret postgate cole on that november afternoon 1915 good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on this 11th of november when we keep an armistice day an act of remembrance and all over the world that act is replicated in different ways by those of different cultures who fought in conflicts on different sides remembering the devastation of war and the great war which ended at 11 o'clock in the morning on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 was a war which seemed to engender poetry for those fighting and those at home and we remember that as we will keep silence at 11 o'clock this morning and remember simply remember and then commit ourselves to the cause of peace [Music] many things have happened as always on this day november the 11th in 1790 a lovely thing chrysanthemums were introduced to england from china on this day in 1821 dostoevsky was born such an important writer in so many ways in 1954 tolkien published his second volume of the lord of the rings the two towers and in that there is the conflict between that which is good that which is evil going on at different levels all the time and the temptations offered to those who attain power those temptations are mighty in 1919 the first two-minute silence was held and for the first time the creativity of silence in remembrance of a whole nation was affected and we keep that silence today in company with those across the world as the 11 o'clock time comes around the globe so let's say our prayers on this day which is also saint martin's day and always was martin mass it used to be called the 11th of november in the christian calendar and we shall think about saint martin of tours himself a soldier who became a priest and a bishop of tour and we'll think about that in our reflection but for the moments we begin our prayers o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise let your ways be known upon earth your saving power among the nations blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief your only son was lifted up that he might draw the whole world to himself may we walk this day in the way of the cross and always be ready to share its weight declaring your love for all the world blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind does we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence so god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 11th morning of the month is psalm 57. be merciful to me o god be merciful to me for my soul takes refuge in you in the shadow of your wings will i take refuge until the storm of destruction has passed by i will call upon the most high god the god who fulfills his purpose for me he will send from heaven and save me and rebuke those that would trample upon me god will send forth his love and his faithfulness i lie in the midst of lions people whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword be exalted o god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth they have laid a net for my feet my soul is pressed down they have dug a pitch before me and will fall into it themselves my heart is ready oh god my heart is ready i will sing and give you praise awake my soul awake harp and liar that i may awaken the dawn i will give you thanks o lord among the peoples i will sing praise to you among the nations for your loving kindness is as high as the heavens and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds be exalted oh god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth we come to our regular reading from the revelation to john and today we are in chapter seven we're reading verses one to four and nine to the end after this i saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding back the four winds of the earth that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree then i saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living god and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea saying do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our god on their foreheads and i heard the number of the sealed 144 000 sealed from every tribe of the tribes of israel and after this i looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice salvation belongs to our god who sits on the throne and to the lamb and all the angels were standing round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped god saying amen blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our god forever and ever men then one of the elders addressed me saying who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come i said to him sir you know and he said to me these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb therefore they are before the throne of god and serve him day and night in his temple and the one who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence they shall hunger no more neither thirst any more the sun shall not strike them nor any scorching heat for the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of living water and god will wipe away every tear from their eyes well that is the regular lesson in course as we've been reading through the book revelation not chosen on purpose for this particular day as it comes round but no lesson could be better on this day and the images it gives us are thoughtful reflective and poignant for this day of remembrance there are contradictions in it as there always are in visions and dreams and pictures and we shall each on different days stop it different times to contemplate different verses as we do when we're reading the psalms perhaps one can point to the contradiction of a definite number or the definite tribes of israel which by the time john of patmos was writing this had ceased to exist in that early old testament form but were an image of totality and hellness on the other hand when one gets to the scene of those waiting in front of the throne of god we find that there are no numbers just countless nations and peoples and tribes and languages someone holds the two ideas in a juxtaposition as we shall with so many of the ideas that we come across in this fascinating book but at the same time the four horsemen have now become the four winds of the earth held back for a moment of stillness a moment of silence and the leaves are still and the book of revelation gives one pauses when one seems to stop the sixth seal was opened the seventh seal is yet to come we have this pause when we wait in contemplation a timeless pause and in the pause there is time for singing time for adoration time for weeping time and here's another contradiction for the lamb to be our shepherd and lead us to streams of living water where our parched dryness will be refreshed and where tears will be wiped away well this is a day when so many so many tears have been shed across the ages and the poignancy of remembering those who have died too suddenly in conflicts right up to the present moment the poignancy of that is still very sharp [Music] but as we stop this morning our hearts are filled with the desire for peace throughout a world which is at the moment fighting pestilence the old-fashioned word for it and signs of hope are being given and we comfort one another across the nations in that way the great war which at the end of the great war people felt that was the conflict of all conflicts not realizing that in such a short time just over 20 years a much greater conflict would begin with far more horrors but at the same time the horrors of the the trench warfare and everything expressed became suddenly poignant and as those two-minute silence began across the world and in 1920 or so the tomb of the unknown warrior 1920 was buried in westminster abbey and that has become not only in england a sign where leaders of nations come and spend silence together not just on this day but whenever they visit each other and across the world that that tomb is replicated in different ways in different cultures in different ways but always there are places for remembrance and an intention that this shan't happen again a pause as we pause this morning but one remembers that the war in people's hearts didn't end at that moment the grief continued there's a a very poignant poem written by the novelist e.w hornan who before the great war wrote thrilling stories about uh raffles the the the the great uh gentleman thief and amused people with them in the great war in july 1915 at the second battle of eve his son oscar was killed and life never became the same again horning stopped writing anything but poetry went to france having joined the ymca to run a canteen and library for the comfort and solace of those there he also after the war wrote a poem here it is go live the wide world over but when you come to die a quiet english churchyard is the only place to lie i held it half a lifetime until through war's mischance i saw the wooden crosses that fret the fields of france who says their war is over while others carry on the little wooden crosses spell but the dead and gone not while they deck a skyline not while they crown a view or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth anew the tenants of the churchyard where the singing thrushes build were not perhaps all paragons of promise well fulfilled some failed through love or liquor while the parish looked as scance but you cannot die a failure if you win across in france that poem of grief written for his son kipling did the same for his boy jack but in hearts and minds so many did the same and poetry seemed to speak with all its contradictions and images where simple prose would not do today is the day we remember saint martin of tours a soldier saint he was born in 316 a.d and baptized in 334 when the roman empire was only just beginning to recognize christianity as legal and where christianity was very much a minority religion but he became from his aristocratic family he became a christian much to their suspicion and certainly not with their support but the thing we remember about martin is his vision before his baptism while he was still a catechumen vision after he had stopped at the gates of amion on a freezing day taken his officer's cloak cut it in half and given half to the cold beggar on the ground and that night dreamed a dream and the dream was of the courts of heaven where jesus was wearing his cloak and was the beggar and saying to the courts of heaven martin gave me this cloak and he is still only a catechumen that vision is how we think of saint martin a soldier in a different army from then on some of you would have been to tour when i went there i was quite surprised at the basilica because it had been one of the most important basilicas in medieval europe because martian was a very important saint and the little church of saint martin at the road here which augustine used when he came to bring christianity to the english and was greeted by queen bertha little martin's church up there is the mother church of this canterbury cathedral but the basilica of sint martin was completely and horrendously destroyed in the french revolution and stone by stone taken away and the dressed stone used in other buildings and roads built across it it was only at the end of the 19th century that a bit of that ground was bought again and a new basilica built so when you go there the basilica was consecrated i think in about 1925 you think this is not what i was expecting no it's the result of conflict and violence but it provides a place of peace into where the soldier saint is remembered in that basilica of sint martin and his vision that a deed done on earth is reflected in the courts of heaven and then comes back in that visionary form is something that we hold on to this morning as the leaves lie around me but at the same time the inspiration to write poetry gives us a help on this day when we hear the courts of heaven singing in that wonderful lesson from the revelation in one of my favorite poems by the soldier in the first world war secret who was a poet and who at the conclusion wrote the wonderful poem here it is now the vision of peace everyone suddenly burst out singing and i was filled with such delight as prison birds must find in freedom winging wildly across the white orchards and dark green fields on on and out of sight everyone's voice was suddenly lifted and beauty came like the setting sun my heart was shaken with tears and horror drifted away oh but everyone was a bird and the song was worthless the singing will never be done well our psalm this morning ended in singing and our lesson this morning ended in singing and the wiping away of tears and as we keep our own memory this morning of all whom we would want to remember those tears are part of all that we do creatively so let's together now say our prayers on this particular day praying for our anglican communion and on this 11th of november for the diocese of rupert's land in canada and for jeffrey woodcraft the bishop there and the diocese of dagora in papua new guinea and tennyson bogar the bishop there and his people here in this diocese we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and here today we begin our prayers for the parishes around maidstone the area deanery of maidstone here in the county of kent and pray for chris lavender looking after that deanery and all those who live within the compass of the deanery the parishes we shall pray for day by day and the days to come there are two special prayers for today the first special prayer is for this saint martin's day god all-powerful who called martin from the armies of this world to be a faithful soldier of christ give us grace to follow him in his love and compassion for the needy and enable your church to claim for all people their inheritance as children of god through jesus christ our lord amen and the prayer for this week almighty father whose will is to restore all things in your beloved son the king of all govern the hearts and minds of those in authority and bring the families of the nations divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin to be subject to his just and gentle rule who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so we say in our many languages and offer up to heaven our own thoughts and prayers in the words our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment of silence now for our prayers on this remembrance day the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you pray for and those whom you would remember this day and always are men [Music] [Music] you