Day 10 - In Flanders’ fields

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

(Extract from “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae)

This week, the theme for Life Light is “creation”. On this day, as we remember the supreme sacrifices made by so many on our behalf, our thoughts may not easily turn to creation, but to the pain, loss, terror and destruction that war and conflict bring to our world.

As I write this, Palestinians are returning to their homes in Gaza as a fragile ceasefire continues. Daily, we see images of the destruction of their country. Homes, schools, places of work, shops and hospitals have been destroyed; everything that creates the physical fabric of their society. The same scene is played out in many places in our world currently wrought by conflict; in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Sudan to name but four.

It was a similar scene on the battlefields of Western Europe during the First World War. Warfare had turned previously beautiful landscapes to mud; bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could flourish. And yet it was in exactly those places where, as Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae observed in his now-famous poem, poppies were seen to grow. Their beauty and delicacy were a stark contrast to the brutal ugliness around them; their bright red flowers a poignant reminder of the blood which had so recently soaked into the same ground.

Poppies may seem the most fragile and transitory of flowers, but they are remarkably hardy. They can grow in sometimes inhospitable places, including along roadside verges, and survive in temperatures as low as −12 °C.

The poppy has become a world-famous symbol of remembrance, and many of us will have worn one at some time over the past few days. You may be wearing one now. But they are also a powerful symbol of new life and hope, and a metaphor for God’s love and care for us. Though they seem fragile, they are strong and resilient, able not only to survive but to thrive in hostile places and conditions. Where all can seem bleak and dead and where all hope is lost, they bring colour and new life. They remind us that God’s creation is greater and more enduring than our appetite for destruction. As it says in Psalm 104:-

When you send your Spirit,

they are created,

and you renew the face of the ground.

(Psalm 104 v30)

And poppies remind us, most importantly, of God’s great, enduring and abiding faithfulness to us.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

(Lamentations 3 vv22-23)

Philip Clarke