This was originally posted at the Big Bible Project
I’ve been exploring a [1]vocation within the Church of England for a little over two years. The exploration has been a journey of ups and downs, but mainly ups. The process described as ‘discernment’ is for the church to discern an individual’s vocation (or call) to ministry, to select and to train and form the individual for their future ministry. The system is national, with local variations, diocese by diocese. The process appears convuluted and can be prolonged, but at the end of it, you hope that your call will be discerned and that you will go forward for training for the type of ministry you feel called too.
While I have my own blog[2], I have been excited and envigorated by the Big Bible and digidisciple concepts, in particular the digidisciple blog posts, some from people who I know, or enjoy online relationships with, and others who I don’t know, but want to very soon. The concept seems to me to be very enabling and particpatory, which has been very much my experience in the vocations journey so far.
So, why write another blog? I thought that I might write on how I feel about the terminology of the discernment process and how in other contexts words, phrases or terms used relate speak to me of other things or places in my life, which might point to something different..
I come from a military background, my original ‘call to serve’ was as a soldier. The first word I’m thinking about is ‘call’! In military terms you might use it to describe a summons to duty, the one perhaps familiar to most people would be the bugle calls ‘Reveille and Last Post’. It is also a call to war. I’m reminded of of the Poem by Robert Willian Service[3], written from France in August 1914, just after the start of the Great War of 1914-1919.
The Call:
Far and near, high and clear,
Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
War! War! War!
Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
War! War! War!
High and low, all must go:
Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A sabre instead of a scythe to wield:
War! Red War!
Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A sabre instead of a scythe to wield:
War! Red War!
Rich and poor, lord and boor,
Hark to the blast of War!
Tinker and tailor and millionaire,
Actor in triumph and priest in prayer,
Comrades now in the hell out there,
Sweep to the fire of War!
Prince and page, sot and sage,
Hark to the roar of War!
Poet, professor and circus clown,
Chimney-sweeper and fop o’ the town,
Into the pot and be melted down:
Into the pot of War!
Hark to the blast of War!
Tinker and tailor and millionaire,
Actor in triumph and priest in prayer,
Comrades now in the hell out there,
Sweep to the fire of War!
Prince and page, sot and sage,
Hark to the roar of War!
Poet, professor and circus clown,
Chimney-sweeper and fop o’ the town,
Into the pot and be melted down:
Into the pot of War!
Women all, hear the call,
The pitiless call of War!
Look your last on your dearest ones,
Brothers and husbands, fathers, sons:
Swift they go to the ravenous guns,
The gluttonous guns of War.
The pitiless call of War!
Look your last on your dearest ones,
Brothers and husbands, fathers, sons:
Swift they go to the ravenous guns,
The gluttonous guns of War.
Everywhere thrill the air
The maniac bells of War.
There will be little of sleeping to-night;
There will be wailing and weeping to-night;
Death’s red sickle is reaping to-night:
War! War! War!
The maniac bells of War.
There will be little of sleeping to-night;
There will be wailing and weeping to-night;
Death’s red sickle is reaping to-night:
War! War! War!
http://media.photobucket.com/image/jesus%20gun/elite_17/jesus-machine-gun.jpg?o=10
Service wasn’t against military service itself. He enlisted, at age 41, despite being unfit, before being discharged. He later served as a war correspondent and as a stretcher bearer and ambulance driver with the American Red Cross. Reading this poem, it seems to me to have been prothetic, given that it was written at an early stage of the war, before some of the great war poetry was written by the likes of Rupert Brook[4], Wilfred Owen[5], and Siegfried Sasoon[6].
Why does this speak to me?
Having spent the greater part of my adult life in uniform, several tours of which were active service. Not in today’s context, but the no less dangerous environment of Northern Ireland. Somewhere along the line, perhaps in the last two years of service, the call to serve in the vocation of military got lost somewhere. I’m still trying to work out whether it was conscience or disilluison or just plain fatigue? But somehow, sending more and more young men off to pointless wars seemed illogical and in the case of the second Iraq War, illegal. We seemed to have gone to war purely on a fabrication of the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not ashamed of my service. I am proud to have served. I remain enormously proud of our armed services and the job that they are doing, and will continue to do. I just know that I have somehow become a pacifist.
I became a Christian fairly late in this process, which I’m sure had some impact on my thought process. It was the start of a process of transformation which led to where I am now. With a new ‘call to serve’ but God, not war. It’s started, where will it take me next?
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