Sunday Services 10:00 followed by a time of fellowship.
Church school the first Sunday of each month (and some other Sundays)
Office hours are 9:00-noon, 1:00-4:00 Monday to Friday.
Please use the Accessible Entrance near the kitchen to visit during the week.
The East Entrance is for the day care only.
- Iain McGilveray
If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow In Flanders fields. (John McCrae, 1915)
A couple of years ago, I passed the marvellous Memorial Clock Tower in Hokitika, South Island, New Zealand. When I first saw it, I thought it was one of the ubiquitous monuments to the soldiers of the Great War (WW1) seen in every village, town or city of the “British Empire”. However, it turned out to be a dual purpose monument to 4 troopers lost in the South African War 1899-1901 and to commemorate the coronation of Edward VII in 1902. Two decades later the monument industry flourished as the numbers commemorated were astounding.
On this centenary year of WWI, CBC reported that there are about 7,000 memorials of various types spread around Canada, including simple crosses, cenotaphs, the National War Memorial on Elgin Street, as well as memorial halls, arenas, etc. The number of dead from WWI is difficult to estimate, but one source suggests a total of 17 million service men, including 60,000 Canadians, and 4.5 million civilians were killed. Many soldiers lost in the mud to artillery bombardments are memorialized in monuments such as the Menin gate in Ypres, Belgium, their final resting places only Known unto God. In this “War to End Wars”, the people of the countries on both sides had hopes that such carnage would be avoided in future and after the 1919 Peace Conference, the League of Nations was initiated. However, aside from other small wars such as the Turkish War of Independence (1919-23) and the not so small Sino-Japanese war (1937-41), the Second World War demonstrated that avoidance of war remains difficult.
The estimated death toll in WWII ranges from approximately 60 to 85 million, making it the deadliest war in world history. Civilians killed totaled from 38 to 55 million, including 19 to 25 million from war-related disease and famine. Total military dead were from 22 to 25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. Clearly today, despite setting up the United Nations (sequel to the League), humankind continues to pursue war. Humanity has not lived up to John McRae’s 1915 challenge.
The other phrase that is uttered around the world on Remembrance Day, November 11, is Lest We Forget, written in the 1897 poem Recessional by Empire Poet Laureate, Rudyard Kipling, who lost his only son in WWI. But going back to the memorials, it becomes more and more difficult to remember our fathers, grand and great grandfathers (and mothers’) generation after 100 years.
One thing I suggest to honour both McCrae's & Kipling’s sentiments is that we look to our churches. Although they have many financial problems, as our buildings are sold, churches could rescue the many memorial plaques that adorn the walls of old churches and consider how to gather them. A central depositary in Ottawa, perhaps, or more considerate of our sacrificed people, provincial places of remembrance are possibilities. The T. Eaton store memorial plaque from Toronto is kept in the Canadian War Museum, for example. Such a project would honour, both John McRae’s and Rudyard Kipling’s pleas.
Going back to In Flanders Field, John McCrea wrote this poem after he’d buried and paid tribute to a young friend from Ottawa, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer. Alex had worshiped in Bank Street and Chalmers Presbyterian Churches in Ottawa. Dominion-Chalmers church replaced both these congregations and there is a plaque to Lieutenant Helmer in that church, noting the connection to In Flanders Field.
COVID note: Although in person services have resumed, some church meetings may have alternate locations or virtual arrangements.
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