Pilgrim Soldier

Earlier this week I had an opportunity to have uninterrupted access to the radio, so I was listening to the BBC World Service. There was a repeat documentary on called “Return to Sarajevo” about the Balkans war and how people are still affected 10 years after the Dayton Accords.

At one point the journalist (Allan Little) was interviewing a twenty-something woman who he had met during his time in Bosnia during the war. This young woman said,

“Those were the best years of my life. The best years. Because everything was so simple. You live everyday as if it is your last day and you care about people and you share everything you have and we had so much love for other people.”

I was so amazed by these words that I ended up having to search long and hard for the programme on the internet, so that I could get them down on paper correctly. What an amazing testimony of what war is like.

She could have concentrated on the death and destruction that abounded in Sarajevo during the long siege. She could have highlighted how the war tore communities apart along ethnic lines. Instead though she puts the emphasis on the way people came together and celebrates how this has shaped her whole life.

We’re in the midst of a war that has been going on for millennia yet the Church is often the last place we see these sentiments! For so many people I know the outward expression of their faith is that old a grumpy old man or woman. I include myself in this as well, because all too often I can be a miserable so-and-so!

We seem to have lost so much of the appeal of Jesus’ teaching. That is world-changing, life affirming stuff, yet we get bogged down in the “Thou shalt nots” of Christian tradition. How does this sort of thing glorify God? Maybe we have been beaten down by the long-term nature of the battle and have forgotten what it is we’re fighting for. Maybe that’s why so many cannot find the sort of camaradarie that so many crave.

The Christianity of the early church and of the many awakenings/revivials over the years was a joyous, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants expression that enlivened the people who were caught up by it. Oh for such a time as that now! Oh for a church that is characterised by communal spirit, love and sharing! Maybe I wouldn’t be such a grumpy old man then!