[While we don’t have the music to share with our readers, we do want to share the lyrics of this new song by long-time Wine Before Breakfast band member, John Kirstein.]
O Lord whence the waging war?
O Lord whence the violent scourge?
O Lord whence the fallen men,
Along the trenches, all our kin?
Along the trenches, all our kin.
I think of Pilate before our Lord,
Far throughout history the question tolled:
What is truth? What is war?
What is our world fighting for?
What is our world fighting for?
O Suffering Servant on the dying tree,
What was done so we could be free?
What sacrifice? What promised land?
Will we ever understand?
Will we ever understand?
I think of Peter with his drawn-out sword,
All he left behind thrown overboard.
I think of young men in a foreign land,
Truth-gripped minds with a gun in hand.
Truth-gripped minds with a gun in hand.
O Lord we pray our war is just,
That the tears you saved from the blood-stained dust
Will water the fields of a coming peace,
But a hundred years hence, war does not cease.
But a hundred years hence, war does not cease.
O Suffering Servant on the dying tree,
What was done so we could be free?
What sacrifice? What promised land?
Will we ever understand?
Will we ever understand?
4 Responses to “Remembrance Day Song”
Grant LeMarquand
Thanks John,
I have lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for three Remembrance Days. Each year I am invited to lead the service at the Commonwealth Cemetery here. This year I have had the surreal experience of leading and preaching at three Remembrance services in three different countries in the Horn of Africa. The ‘congregation’ in Addis is mostly ambassadors, embassy military attaches and their spouses, along with a few members of the ex-patriot community. Outside of Ethiopia the congregations have been almost entirely military. This has been a weird thing to do for a (granted, rather inconsistent) pacifist. But my experience has been that the more strongly I condemn war and its consequences, the more positive the reaction I receive – even, well maybe especially, from the military personnel present. The other very positive response that I’ve had has been from Muslims attending these services – especially when I say that human beings cannot end war – God must intervene (Ps 47 – He makes wars to cease in all the earth).
Thanks for the song!
blessings
Grant LeMarquand, Anglican Bishop, the Horn of Africa
John Kirstein
Dear Grant,
I have never been addressed by a bishop! And I must confess that this is the first time I thought of checking the post on the website (Brian did tell me about it). Thank you so much for writing! I’ve been present to the violence of our world going about at the speed of oil and light, being a stranded guilty bystander while actual people died elsewhere. So this song pitched a question mark within the strange, somber, atmosphere of an 180 year or so old Presbytarian Church in the heartland of Southern Ontario’s luscious suburban blissblues. In the congregation members who actually have family members in living memory who were connected to actual warfare. I was strangely affected during the time by the synchronicity of ISIS, a service member who comes from close to where I live being gunned down in front of a war memorial in Ottawa, and scant readings of the poet-painter David Jones. To be honest, I feel my song to be religious kitsch. Yet the questions sung in the song come from a place better than I am able to live.
Peace to you brother,
John
John Kirstein
I take one thing back. I once was viewed from the corner of his eye by one N.T. Wright (not sure if he was a bishop then), while accompanying his singing of a Bob Dylan tune involving naval matters.
Brian Walsh
Yes indeed Wright was a bishop at the gig at the Revival nightclub in Toronto. In fact, we affectionately dubbed him ‘the bish’ that evening. WrightRemixed was the birth of Empire Remixed and Bishop Grant would have loved it.