In the Midst of Life ...

As we slowly slipped out of the village past the closed curtains of the Potters, on past the Deans, the empty house of the de Bells, the dim light of the Parkers where the children were discovering a new day, the Robeys, the Crottys, leaving Bunbury behind and all its people, we switched on the car radio to the "Today" programme and presenter Sue's encouraging voice telling us to enjoy the coming season of Autumn.

Autumn? We were on our way to Cornwall for our Summer holiday! We were leaving the traumas and the delights of Bunbury's Summer, leaving all those who were preparing for weddings and bap- tisms and, unprepared, to face the unknown terror of sudden death.

Every Autumn has a touch of melancholy; for many, tears lie strangely near the surface. I guess for many of us this last month there have been times when we wished that time could have stood still.

Since we left for that holiday, I personally have been confronted with death, and we have all been confronted with death, both natural and violent. A time, it seems to me, of too much loss, too much pain. We want to turn time back. We want the pain to go away.

But it doesn't. We each have to live it through, grasping support and comfort wherever they are offered.

Our village has suffered over the loss of a fine doctor. Friends lost a friend. A family lost the ir- replaceable. And then, suddenly, tragedy was multiplied by thousands as violence and violation erupted in New York, Washington and Penn- sylvania.

What would Christian precept counsel us? For- giveness? But how can we learn to forgive when the outrage seems so enormous and the wound so raw?

When someone close to us dies, it is recognised that anger is a stage in the mourning process - anger because we suffer pain and loss against our will, anger which comes from the battle in the mind to re- ject acceptance of the loss, and which gives way in the end to that acceptance and the final grief. We need the understanding friends who hold us through

that time with quiet support and love, accepting our anger and letting it work its way through while pro- tecting us from making any desperate moves. It is the same for a group, a community, a nation. When even one person dies at the violent hands of an unknown attacker, far worse thousands, the anger is terrible, the soul repudiates acceptance. There are demands for vengeance and retribution, and a determination to seek out the guilty and exact fierce punishment. Dare one even mention things like understanding and forgiveness?

One did. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The perpetrators in America frustrated that angry call by taking their fate on themselves, dying the same horrifying - but to them glorious - death as their victims, blood and bones and ashes mingled as they all went to meet their God.

The demand for revenge still has to be satisfied, it seems, but we know the dangers of the angry lynch mob and can be grateful for the counsels of strong and wise advisers. Not revenge but justice is called for and the moves made must be controlled and sure. Indiscriminate forgiveness is not the way. We do indeed have a long, hard war ahead of us, and we all have a great deal to learn.

Military force unleashed against peoples is the old way, achieves nothing good and is irrelevant in this new war to which we are pledged against the secret terrorists in our midst. How are we to prepare our- selves? May I suggest that you read Ephesians VI, 10-19? We need "the whole armour of God".

I believe an opportunity is before us. We are being given time to correct the past neglect that has caused others to look at our Christian western world with abhorrence. Dare we "think big"? Dare we suggest, for instance, that all the money pro- mised to rebuild the twin towers of capitalism could instead be given directly to creating an infrastructure in Afghanistan? Not a declaration of war in the old sense but a practical and positive declaration of Christian action - Christian love in action - may change the world and bring about that Kingdom for which we are all looking.

The opportunity which time gives for fresh ex- periences, further consideration, careful reassess- ment is now. So let the waterfall of time cascade down. If it is unbearable now, there is that hope that there will be a new heaven and a new earth and the old things will pass away. "The new earth and sky," wrote C.S. Lewis, "the same yet not the same, will rise in us as we have risen with Christ. The birds sing out and the waters flow and the lights and

shadows move across the hills and the faces of our friends laugh upon us with amazed recognition."

Rick