I write this with very mixed feelings about the forthcoming day of remembrance on January 27th for holocaust victims. It is not a date I want to stick in my diary as it stands. It begs too many questions, e.g.:

(i) Why was not such a day declared at the end of WWII in 1945?
(ii) Where are the memorial days for all those other groups of people who have been annihilated, cleansed or wiped out? 

On the list are 1 million Christian Armenians wiped out by the Turks during WWI : the victims of the Atom Bombs : the victims of Dresden : the tribes in Rwanda who busily massacred eachother : Poles and Cossacks removed by Russians and Germans alike, systematically wiping out the professional or officer class : genocide this last decade in the former Yugoslavia? The list goes on and many questions will remain unanswered save for the response that it was ever so. The Vikings massacred the Parisii in the East Riding early in the 1st millennium because these settlers from Paris had bettered them in battle the year before. Crusaders did their share, the Spanish theirs (amongst the native South Americans) and so on. The slaughter in the American Civil War, in the year my grandfather was born, was unbelievable. "Oh What a Lovely War" made its own comment on the waste of life in the trenches of WWI. Had it not been for that I would have conducted 3 funerals a week on average in rural areas when I was seeking ordination in the '70s - after all, Kepwick had three cricket teams then.

So, yes, I may be dubious about the reasons for this day of remembrance so many years late and leaving out so much. And I also have an ANGER from a visit paid to the Yad Veshen memorial in Jerusalem 13 years ago ..... I've seen the mounds of dead marked in mass graves in the Belsen where no birds sing - I was taken there as a boy. I've seen the silent memorial to the massacred Armenians (another terrible holocaust that is perpetuated today by expunging any artefact or church that remains, after the extermination of people, to make it look as though they never existed) in Jerusalem. I've visited Dresden and seen the rebuilding plans for the Cathedral and the catalogue of its destruction. I've been to Rwanda on holiday in happier times, and realised its potential. I've seen striking memorials to the American Civil War and the sculpture studio where they were conceived. I've visited East Berlin before the Wall came down and seen the emptiness and the deliberately unrepaired churches out there. I've patrolled the dividing line in Cyprus where Turk and Greek confront each other, both guilty of wiping out villages. I've patrolled in Northern Ireland where the only time the various factions would unite was to oppose the peacekeeping forces - we became Aunt Sally in the middle .....

It is a strange world but it hasn't changed. I'm not anti-Semitic but I found the attitude of guides, now second-generation Jews born in Israel, deeply offensive about the Allies' failure to liberate the concentration camps in the heart of Germany in the middle of the war - blaming not only my father but myself and my children as well. Hearing a Rabbi preach in York Minster at a legal service in the '80s, I was struck by an ideology difference. He talked of a holocaust in York, at Clifford's Tower, in the middle ages. He talked of mercy, justice and righteousness - all lovely Old Testament themes - but he made no mention of forgiveness. Christianity and Judaism part company on that aspect. They part company on the Cross. Yet in Judaism we see a use of history that perpetuates a certain aspect of the story, and in Christianity the Cross which takes history and our story in a different direction.

I say nothing here about Vietnam, the slaughter of so many innocent people in Iraq, the civil war for 30 years in Ethiopia (where the currency is our own and hijacked by the warlords), because I've not been there. But I begin to think that for a Christian nation the day of January 27th would be better used as forgiveness day, and a day of prayer for the World. We need to forgive history, to learn from history and to build on history. Northern Ireland has not come to terms with its own history. As Christians, our history draws on the Old Testament and continues with plenty of mistakes since the death of Christ. However, knowing our past, and maybe taking the opportunity to use January 27th as a day of reflection, we are better able to know where we are going. With a proper understanding of history we can move on. Don't lose your way!

T.H.

PS November 2nd 2001. Service of Thanksgiving, to mark the Centenary of The Submarine Service, at Westminster Abbey.

CONGRATULATIONS to Reverend Julian Frost (renowned sailor and walker), of St.Paul’s Church, Beckenham, on reaching his Retirement at the end of January, and also on being made an Honorary Canon of Rochester Cathedral.  He is retiring to Lancaster.

"Our" Universe and Us

1. Space and Time

I began this article just after watching Patrick Moore's guest, Professor Chris Kitchen, explaining the latest conclusion (of those concerned) to determine, if possible, why our planet home and "our" moon behave as they do. Once the belief was that the moon had broken away from the earth - resulting in the formation of the Pacific Ocean? - but that view has now been superseded. Two fragments from the Big Bang, which came too close to maintain wholly independent orbits many millennia ago, cannot now break the pattern. Earth and Moon are now stuck with each other. Moonlight still has great importance on earth, as those of us with street lighting sometimes forget! Just as well!
Then, not so long ago, we had a visit from a comet that was last seen in our skies before the days of the Pharaohs. Just a thought - we wonder whether human life will greet its next appearance in 4,000 years time! Or would B-Bop have an adventure out in space which would divert its course? (It almost feels, with the label it has been given, as if it could be a character in a Douglas Adam "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" tale.)

A more recent event, the total eclipse of the sun, was disappointing except to the minority of observers who were above cloud level, or in a very few favoured spots. So there was great hope for a really clear view of the partial eclipse of the moon. This time there was a surprise - colour in the shadow of the earth, and not just uniform grey. It was spectacular - even the next morning I had an after-view of the immense shadowy disc slowly disappearing behind the tall trees on the race course boundary in Station Road. Added to this, there was another T.V. programme that took us back to the Mars vehicle landing and the prospect that more analysis of the pictures taken from the fly-past vehicle could be shown. As it happens, that vehicle is on its way now, far past our observation. Will it surprise someone, somewhere, some day?
But the night skies were of practical significance to countless generations, as recorded in the Old Testament. People observed, and theorised and questioned ......... about the origins of sky, sun, earth and stars, and of man.

Out of my memory, at a simpler level, emerged a Victorian (?) verse: "Where did you come from, baby dear?"
"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE INTO HERE"
"Where did you get those eyes of blue?"
"OUT OF THE SKY AS I CAME THROUGH"
Oddly enough, behind this fantasy there is possibly a grain of truth, according to some suggestion about how the Creator of all things brought about the changes that Earth has seen since life began. MIRIAM HANSON

CAROL SINGING in Borrowby, Christmas 2000. A total of £285 was raised. So cheques for £95 each have been given to Borrowby Methodist Chapel, St.Mary Leake and All Saints Roman Catholic Church, Thirsk. Many thanks to all those who donated so gen-erously and those who took part in the singing. J.E.D.

Pray for PETER LOUIS STOREY died 3 January 2000 aged 84 

Poem composed on his last visit to Simon Scott

I dream't that death came the other night and Heaven's
 gate swung wide,
with kindly grace an Angel came and ushered me inside.
 And there to my astonishment stood folks I'd known on
 earth 
some I judged quite unfit - or of little worth. 
Indignant words rose to my lips but never were set free 
for every face showed stunned surprise .... no one expected me. 

Submitted by Dorothy Broadwith.