The Kirk News November 2017 In this Issue Tuesday’s Tea and Tunes Calendar Overview Community Activities Minibus Message from the Manse Family News Sleep in the Park Wilfred Edward Salter Owen Sunshine Corner HeartEdge The Guild The Boys’ Brigade FACE New Entrance Doors for GCH Flower List Kilimanjaro to Kinleith Messy Church Who’s Who The Good Book Group Talents Social Event Update CALENDAR OVERVIEW: Why not cut out this handy calendar and put it on your fridge!! (GCH= Gibson Craig Halls) 2017 November 1 Wednesday 11—11.30 am—Prayers for All, GCH—Lounge 5 Sunday 10 am—Worship Currie Kirk with Prayer Tree Service following worship 6 Monday 7 pm—Good Book Group, GCH 7 Tuesday 10 am—Guild—GCH—“Edinburgh Direct Aid”—Speaker Ann Thanisch 12 Sunday 10 am—Remembrance Sunday Service, Currie Kirk 14 Tuesday 2.30—4 pm—A Café for those Living with Dementia, GCH (See page 6) 17 Friday Deadline for articles for December/January Kirk News 19 Sunday 10 am—Worship—Currie Kirk with Guild Rededication Service 21 Tuesday 2.00 pm—Guild—GCH—“Swinging into the 60’s”—Speaker: Tom Kelly 24 Friday 2—4 pm—Messy Church, GCH—Topic is “Light” 26 Sunday 10 am—Worship—Currie Kirk, with informal Sacrament of Communion following worship 26 Sunday 2—4 pm—Family Beetle Drive, GCH—Large Hall—proceeds to Christian Aid December 3 Sunday 10 am—Worship Currie Kirk with Prayer Tree Service following worship 5 Tuesday 10 am—Guild—GCH—“Advent and Christmas”—Speaker: Tom Gordon 6 Wednesday 11-11.30—Prayers for All, GCH—Lounge 9 Saturday 11 am—3 pm—Reflective Service: Service will take place at 12 Noon—12.30 followed by Communion 10 Sunday 10 am—Advent worship: Festival Choir with Lessons and Carols 16 Saturday 7 pm—Currie Community Carols—GCH 17 Sunday 10 am—Family Advent Worship 19 Tuesday 1—6 pm—Guild—GCH—Christmas Party with Rosy Carmichael; Craft; & Gifts 24 Sunday 10 am—Worship Currie Kirk 24 Sunday 6.30 pm—Christmas Eve—Family Christingle & Pyjama Service in GCH. All children are welcome from 5.30 to make their Christingle lanterns before the service. 24 Sunday 11.30 pm—Watchnight Service, Refreshments will be served from 10.30 pm, Currie Kirk. 25 Monday 10 am—Christmas Day Worship, Currie Kirk 31 Sunday 10 am—Worship—Currie Kirk, with informal Sacrament of Communion following worship 2018 January 7 Sunday 10 am—Worship Currie Kirk with Prayer Tree Service following worship 14 Sunday 10 am—Worship Currie Kirk 16 Tuesday 6 pm—Guild– GCH—Scots Night with the Bo’ness Belles 21 Sunday 10 am—Worship Currie Kirk 21 Sunday 10 am—Worship Currie Kirk 28 Sunday 10 am—Worship—Currie Kirk, with Sacrament of Communion. Please note that the deadline for articles for December/January issue of The Kirk News is Friday 17 November 2 A Message from The Manse Dearest Friends here are many things to remember in November. With reverence and respect, we remember the heroism, T camaraderie, obedience, and costly sacrifices of those who have served and continue to serve our nation and the world. I say “the world” because I recently met a lass who has been deployed by the Army to help repair the storm damage in the Virgin Islands. I was reminded that the trained military of our country are often helping people outside of war-zones. That said, this is a month to remember: We remember those who have returned injured or disabled having lost sight or limb or mental health or more. We remember those men and women who did not return because they lost their lives in service to their country. We remember those who had to receive that call or letter to tell them their son or brother, wife or father or lover has been killed. We remember the refugees and all the innocents who suffer still as a result of conflict. Whilst we remember the courage and cost of war, we cannot celebrate war. At times violence may or perhaps must be a necessary or inevitable solution to thwart evil such as genocide like the Holocaust or tyranny. But it is not the solution Christ calls us to. When we observe the conflicts in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan we see a hugely mystifying complexity of issues like totalitarianism, radicalisation, greed, power-mongering, freedom-fighting and then neighbouring countries as well as superpowers posturing and meddling in the mix. The Devil, as Jesus described, lurks and delights in such a chaos where life, and its value loses all purpose and meaning. Yet for those who are suffering abuse or oppression, often life means far far more. When I watch the Massacre and flight of the Rohingya Muslim people from Myanmar to Bangladesh through the treacherous floods and narrow paths, I wonder what they will tell their children if they survive. Will they have their own Exodus story of providence to tell? Those saints, and people we’ve met who are the real peace-makers always seem to have a simple approach to life. Peace is a far simpler thing to engage in than conflict or war. I end with the simple prayer of St Francis. Lord make me a channel of your peace Where there is hatred let me sow your love Where there is injury, pardon Lord And where there is doubt, give me faith in you. Easter 3 Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 1893—1918 WWI Poets Owen, Graves and Sassoon met at Baberton Golf Club 100 years ago. In April 1917, war poet Wilfred Owen was diagnosed with shellshock and sent for treatment at Craiglockart Hospital (now Napier Craiglockart Campus). Whilst hospitalised he met another great War Poet Siegfried Sassoon. Their friendship resulted in a meeting between the two poets and a third, Robert Graves. This was described as “potentially the most powerful meeting of English Literature in the 20th Century”. The links below offer more information on this historic meeting and how the location was uncovered by the historian Neil McLennan and more information on the WW1 poet’s collection that you can visit at Napier Craiglockhart’s campus: https://theconversation.com/owen-sassoon-and-graves-how-a-golf-club-in-scotland-became-the-crucible-for-the -greatest-war-poetry-80229 https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/10627/ http://napier.ac.uk/wilfred-owen-100 Part of the hospital’s plans to restore traumatised British officers to health was to put these men to work in the professions they knew. For Owen, this would include teaching English at Tynecastle High School. As a pupil at Currie High School I studied the poems of Wilfred Owen and in particular “Dulce et decorum est”. To this day it still forms one of my most vivid memories of my education, as I recall my English teacher Mr Stone and the imagery and horror that is portrayed. I was made aware that this historic meeting had, in fact, taken place at Baberton Golf Club on 13 October 1917 and that the final Draft of “Dulce et decorum est” was published shortly after this date. The link to our community which has been unknown until recently has validated the sheer importance of Wilfred Owen and the poems he wrote. Earlier this month, on the 100th anniversary of this meeting we gathered to unveil the plaque that commemorates the meeting. It is placed on the boundary wall of Merrilees Gate, on the site of the old Baberton Golf Club House. Tragically Owen subsequently returned to the Western Front and was killed in action exactly one week before the signing of The Armistice. His mother received the news of his death as the local church bells rang declaring the war’s end. Susan Webber Dulce et Decorum Est (It is Sweet and Right) Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, In all my dreams before my helpless sight Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, Behind the wagon that we flung him in, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,- But someone still was yelling out and stumbling My friend, you would not tell with such high zest And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.- To children ardent for some desperate glory, Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. Pro patria mori. 4 The Guild The Knitters ... or the past few years Edinburgh Direct Aid has shipped containers of clothes to some F 70,000 Syrian refugees in Arsal, a town in Lebanon over 5,000 feet above sea level. In November 2016 Currie Kirk was approached to help with an appeal for the Syrian Refugees in Lebanon. As well as clothing, the ladies in the Currie Guild decided that they would knit hats and set themselves a target of 100.