Woodbine Willie

We ask our men and women to go where no one should be asked to go
To see what no one should be asked to see
And to do what no one should be asked to do

And as we reflect on the loss of six of our soldiers on foreign soil the Church of England remembers another soldier, the Reverend Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy MC, affectionately known as 'Woodbine Willie'.

When war began, Kennedy volunteered to serve as a Chaplain and became one of the best known characters of the war thanks to his habit of handing our cigarettes (which gave him his nickname), his pastoral care of those under his car and his poetry and other writings. Here's one of them, 'War':

There's a soul in the Eternal,
Standing stiff before the King.
There's a little English maiden
Sorrowing.
There's a proud and tearless woman,
Seeing pictures in the fire.
There's a broken battered body
On the wire.

An encounter at the front at Arras (1917) sums up what it is to be a military Chaplain in a most explicit manner when Kennedy crawled out to join a working party putting up wire in front of the trenches and was challenged by a sentry, the tale of which goes like this:

"Who's there?

"The Church!"

"what is the Church doing out here?

"Its job!"

If you stop by and read this - please pray for the men and women who serve in the role of Chaplain to those men and women who march away into conflict in pursuit of peace and justice - the Church 'doing its job!' -  and give thanks for the lives of men like Studdert Kennedy.

"I bet my life on Christ - Christ crucified."

Pax