Today we mark Remembrance Day, a time to reflect on how precious our freedom is to speak, to learn, to feel safe. There has been profound sacrifice of lives, war has exacted a terrible cost in our history – war and the struggle for human rights still exacts a great cost today. So, we remember, but we also reflect on how each of us, perhaps we feel small, insignificant, but today’s Scripture speaks to how Jesus sees a seemingly unimpressive widow with little money as a model for stewardship, even leadership. Today we are reminded that God can accomplish the seemingly impossible through insignificant things.

Consider the story of Rev. Harold Appleyard from Christ Church Anglican in Meaford, Ontario, to talk about how we process the destruction of war and what we choose to do about it. The Rev. Appleyard is an example of taking the destruction of war and turning it into a thing of beauty. His actions could be considered part of his own spiritual resiliency.

The Rev. Appleyard served as a military chaplain during the Second World War. He joined the Grey and Simcoe Foresters in 1941 as their unit chaplain. Almost as soon as he landed, the destruction in England struck him as appalling. He quickly began to collect shards of stained glass from the shattered windows of damaged churches and began to envision using them for a memorial window at his parish church. On volunteer fire duty one night in the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, he met an architect responsible for London’s ancient churches, who referred him to the Cox and Barnard Stained Glass Works in Hove, Sussex. The firm offered to design and re-lead the glass into windows to fit Appleyard’s Meaford church—free of charge in gratitude for the Canadian war effort.

The Rev. Appleyard retrieved glass from churches in France, Belgium, and Holland, and a year after the war ended, the church unveiled the windows as memorials to the parishioners and townspeople who had been killed or wounded during the years of fighting.

Source: www.meafordhaven.ca/2012/02/25/meaford-church-windows-restore-beauty-from-therubble-of-war/

For more about the windows and to see photos of them go to:
www.christchurchanglican.ca/memorial-windows-2