S11 #06 - This monument is for the unknown good in our enemies—A thought for the day on Remembrance Sunday

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https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2025/11/this-monument-is-for-unknown-good-in.html

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Opening Music, "New Heaven", written by Andrew J. Brown and played by Chris Ingham (piano), Paul Higgs (trumpet), Russ Morgan (drums) and Andrew J. Brown (double bass) 

Thanks for listening. Just a reminder that the texts of all these podcasts are available on my blog. You'll also find there a brief biography, info about my career as a musician, & some photography. Feel free to drop by & say hello. Email: caute.brown[at]gmail.com

Transcript

A short “thought for the day” offered to the Cambridge Unitarian Church as part of the Sunday Service of Mindful Meditation  

—o0o—

“For the Unknown Enemy”, written by the American poet and pacifist William Edgar Stafford (1914-1993):

This monument is for the unknown
good in our enemies. Like a picture
their life began to appear: they
gathered at home in the evening
and sang. Above their fields they saw
a new sky. A holiday came
and they carried the baby to the park
for a party. Sunlight surrounded them.

Here we glimpse what our minds long turned
away from. The great mutual
blindness darkened that sunlight in the park,
and the sky that was new, and the holidays.
This monument says that one afternoon
we stood here letting a part of our minds
escape. They came back, but different.
Enemy: one day we glimpsed your life.

This monument is for you.

(William Stafford: “The Way It Is—New & Selected Poems”, Graywolf Press, 1998, p. 217)

—o0o—

Whilst I was on sabbatical leave this summer, I was invited to take part in an interfaith service at the Japanese Jodo Shinshu Buddhist, Three Wheels Temple in London. In addition to various attenders from British-based Buddhist groups and Desmond Biddulph (President and Member, Buddhist Society), we were also joined by a representative from the Japanese Embassy.

The point of the service was twofold. Firstly, it was to mark the 80th anniversary of the day upon which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. Secondly, it was to celebrate the decades long work of the Three Wheels Temple in promoting reconciliation between Japanese and British veterans of World War Two, and more generally, between our respective countries. I was there because, as someone actively exploring the religious and philosophical connections between liberal, free-religion in the UK and Japan, I could speak to the fact that, when we look at the whole history of relations between us since 1868 until today, for the majority of the time, the relations have been positive and creative, rather than negative and destructive. My gentle request was that we would now do well to concentrate ever more upon these positive and creative relations.

Of course, dominating the collective memory of all of us in that service, were the two, literally earth-shattering, moments that brought about the end of the war in the Pacific, namely the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th August 1945. As I am sure many of you know, there are a number of terrible, horrific first-hand accounts of that day from survivors — known as hibakusha [被爆者] — who spoke about eating breakfast, walking to school or to work, being on holiday or at their place of employment, playing in the playground or walking in the park, when, in the blink of an eye, their lives went from the normal and everyday to the profoundly horrific. If you have never read any of those accounts, I recommend you do — and you can find a link to some of them HERE and HERE and HERE— because they allow you to enter the world of William Stafford’s poem with which I began.

The “monument for the unknown good in our enemies” Stafford speaks about is the image that listening to the accounts of these survivors, and survivors of all violent conflicts, can serve to set up in our own memories. Their everyday stories always form a picture of life that is movingly like our own: the songs sung whilst gathering at home in the evening, the pleasure of looking up and seeing a new sky, the pleasure of a holiday and of carrying a baby to the park for a party, of being surrounded by sunlight. It is, of course, the same monument Lloyd Stone hoped to set up in our hearts and minds when he wrote his hymn lyric, “This is my song”, which we sang earlier to Sibelius’ beautiful tune, Finlandia.

As Stafford observes, these images help us “glimpse what our minds long turned away from”, namely, “the great mutual blindness” that darkened the sunlight in the park, and the sky that was new, and the holidays.

And what is the “great mutual blindness”? Well, it is the ancient racist and xenophobic lie currently being currently retold and amplified at this moment in time by so many politicians around the world and, alas, also in our own country, that those who were not born here, or who are simply not white, are our enemies and are intrinsically bad, or even wholly evil.

This morning I want to remind you of your sacred duty as a member of a liberal, free-religious community to call out this lie whenever and wherever you hear it, because this lie always ends in violence and, all too often, to war. And do not allow yourself to think that here in this, apparently cosmopolitan city of Cambridge, we are free from this need to call out the great mutual blindness. Just this week, whilst taking a Palestinian refugee for lunch in Wetherspoons, after reporting to the council a number of incidents of racist intimidation, I was with him when he was, yet again, verbally abused by two white men simply because he was an Arab. Also this week, after recounting this incident to a family member who works for a major international bank, they told me that one of their senior managers, who is from Vietnam, married to a British man and with two British-born children, has finally decided to move her family elsewhere in the world because of the levels of racist abuse she is now regularly receiving on British streets. 

So, today, to counter the pernicious racist and xenophobic lie again clearly stalking our land, on this day of remembrance for all those who have died in conflicts and wars, I ask that, somehow, you are able to set up in your own heart and mind a monument along the lines of that spoken of by William Stafford. A moment says, one Remembrance Sunday morning in Cambridge, “we stood here letting a part of our minds escape. They came back, but different. Enemy: one day we glimpsed your life. This monument is for you.”

—o0o—

To help facilitate the post, thought for the day conversation, I thought it might be helpful to offer you the questions William Stafford used to ask the students to whom he was often invited to speak. They come from “Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War” (Milkwood Editions, 2005, p. 141).

GANDHI QUESTIONS, CITIZEN QUESTIONS, TRENDS OF THOUGHT

    Can a good person be a good citizen in a bad country? Is there such a thing?
    Can a good person be a good friend of a bad person?
    Can you speak truth to power?
    How loud do you have to say no to an evil command? Can you safely say yes? 
    They give you a flag and watch to see how hard you wave it. 
    Should your effort be to overcome those who oppose the good as you see it? — or should you try to redeem them? No matter who...