Transforming Anzac and Remembrance Sunday

As we approach ANZAC day, Rev Graham Conlon shares about the transformative work they have been doing with partners in the RSA.

Over the past few years, when I have presided over ANZAC services there has been a clear message from the people attending that whilst they wanted to continue to honour and thank the fallen, they did not want to commemorate or celebrate war. Having come from a service family myself, I know the harm that long deployments can have on families and communities. Consequently I wanted to give thanks for service, whilst acknowledging the harm that service personnel and their families suffer. So this is what we do and you may want to suggest the same to your local RSA groups.

When people arrive at the service they are given a stone and a white board pen. The stone is a sharp, broken stone usually taken from the Railway stock. The symbolism is that everyone who is deployed both home and abroad is damaged. Whether that be through loss of relationship with family, PTSD (formally know as “shell shock”) physical, emotional and spiritual wounds, or a lack of a parental figure. During the service when we come to the laying of the wreaths, people are encouraged to write the name of a serviceman/woman, whether a person known to them or named on our memorials. People then lay the broken stone on the cenotaph, or alter.

At the next Sunday service, I bring those stones into the church, place them on the alter and we bless the families and people represented by the stones. After the service, we collectively take the stones to our local river and give them to the water. The symbolism is that the name washes off and out to sea and the stone will, over time, be smoothed to represent the healing of the people represented.

Our local RSA listened to this idea with open ears. They embraced the idea fully and loved what we did. The church on Remembrance Sunday was packed and our relationship with a valuable community organisation strengthened. We have managed to take an existing community event in which previously we had a token part to play and transformed it into a space where the love and healing of the Holy Spirit is centre.

Every Blessing
Graham Conlon
Priest in Charge, Rangitikei Parish