I like this time of year - the leaf colours have been wonderful and walking in some lovely days in our very late Indian summer has been a real pleasure. Autumn is of course about moving through the seasons and we are all familiar with the evident truth that is epitomised in the variety of colours we see, that we are always in the midst of change.
It is sometimes said that embracing change is a sign of our maturity.
Yet this time of year is full of traditional remembering. Is this because we don't want to change? Are remembering and change incompatible? Do we yearn for all things to the way they always were? The season begins with All Souls Day on Monday 2nd November when we remember those we have loved but see no more( and I hope you will join me for a short service on Monday 2nd November in Bere Regis Church at 7pm)
Then, on Remembrance Sunday the 8th November and also on Wednesday 11th, we give thanks for and remember all those who through their serving preserved our freedoms and way of life. And over the years of my ministry marking Remembrance Sunday has become more popular, especially amongst our younger people, which is very encouraging.
The politically correct in times past and even some today would eschew singing Cecil Spring -Rice's hymn (usually sung to Gustav Holst's tune from his Planets Suite) - I vow to thee my country because of the phrase the love that asks no question or in other words 'my country right or wrong'.
At the recent thanksgiving service in St Paul's Cathedral last month to mark the end of military operations in Iraq, Archbishop Rowan Williams incurred some media criticism for saying that ..."it would be a very rash person who would feel able to say without hesitation, 'This was absolutely the right or wrong thing to do, the right or wrong place to be'. The Modern serviceman or woman will not be someone who has accepted without question a set of easy answers."
We all have 100% hindsight and now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but the crunch question remains and hopefully what the forthcoming inquiry will illuminate is 'should we have sent our young men and women to fight and be injured and die in Iraq?'
These are not new dilemmas for any of us, be we politicians, Chiefs of Staff, Church leaders, parents or spouses or indeed servicemen and women and whoever we may be. The difference today is that theoretically we are all better informed and more able to assess and make moral, political and tactical judgements about the deployment of our Forces.
A follow up question might be 'what have we learnt and what would we change?
At the heart of any military expedition must be our moral and Christian obligation to be our brothers' keeper as Jesus Christ commands us to be, and what does not change is the commitment and dedication of our Armed Forces and our responsibility to them.
Thoughtful and I hope happy remembering.
With love and prayers
Ian