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Last reflection

THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE

On Christmas Day, 1914, in the first year of World War I, German, British, and French soldiers disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with "the enemy" along two-thirds of the Western Front. German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, "Merry Christmas." "You no shoot, we no shoot." Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man's land strewn with rotting corpses. They sang Christmas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back
home,shared rations, played football, even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced
men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the top brass forced them to fire their weapons, and to aim high.

A shudder ran through the high command on either side. Here was disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this spontaneous peacemaking to be treasonous and subject to court martial. By March, 1915 the fraternization movement had been eradicated and the killing machine put back in full operation. By the time of the armistice in 1918, fifteen million would be slaughtered.

Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. Military leaders have not gone out of their way to publicize it.

The Christmas Truce story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says, "This really happened once." It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden away, out of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how trivial and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest wishes really are true: the world really could be different.

The following are the 10 Commandments from one of the Native American peoples.

Remain close to the Great Spirit.
Show great respect for your fellow beings.
Give assistance and guidance wherever needed.
Be truthful and honest at all times.
Do what you know to be right.
Look after the well-being of mind and body.
Treat the earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.
Take full responsibility for your actions.
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.
Work together for the benefit of all peoples.

What have they to say to us?
How well re we in relation to these commandments?

My soul is restless until it finds its rest in you' St Augustine
A insightful commentary on this comes from Margaret Silf's 'Taste and See - Adventuring into prayer':

"A friend once told me an interesting fact that if you imagine yourself in a stormy sea, and then imagine yourself ten feet below the trough of the highest wave, the water would be perfectly calm...
Like most people, I live most of my life on the 'surface' of myself. My conscious journey through a typical day is mainly occupied with the 'waves'. Sometimes they are managable. Sometimes they reach storm force...Yet the stillness, if my friend is right, lies just 'ten feet down'...
Might it not be a way of reaching the stillness of heart in which prayer can happen?...Prayer is an act of surrender. It asks us to let go of our own agenda, and listen to God. It involves risk."

'Ten feet under' our busy lives...the place where we find rest in God.

Have a restful day!