Musings on the day of infamy

Okay, okay, so I haven’t blogged in awhile. Honestly, all my work is pouring into papers right now. But today is an important day and warrants some reflection -more than normal reflection.

Today is a day that most of my generation does not think on, but there is still a loyal minority that does. Today was the day the Pearl Harbor was bombed some sixty years ago. I know most of you who read this are not ignorant of history, so I don’t have to go into the significance of that event. Suffice to say, I remember it out of a sense of admiration of the greatest generation. They really rose to the occasion out of a great tragedy. The honored dead that day deserve to be remembered.
But I wonder, why do we remember this day so much but ignore of Aug 14/15? This day was V-J day –victory over Japan. It was the end of violent imperialism. It was the end of fighting. It was the release of POWs. It was the day soldiers were sent home safely. Most importantly, it was the beginning of a reconciliation of two nations. After all, Japan and the United States are now political allies.

I feel that this is the day that should stick in our memories at least as strongly as Pearl Harbor. After all, didn’t this day have a hand in the creation of the world as it is now? Do we not want to remember the end of a war, as well as the beginning?

I guess I am not sure why this is the case. Either way, I hope to remember Aug 14th this coming year too.

What follows is the first Advent address on the Four Last Things... This week... death... I am indebted especially to Richard Holloway and his book 'Anger,Sex, Doubt, Death'


They say that there are only 2 things certain in life - death and taxes. In the current financial climate I wouldn’t dream of talking about taxes. I do though, on this the first of four Advent addresses, want to talk about death.

During Advent, the church has traditionally meditated on what it calls the Four Last Things - death, judgement, heaven and hell. They are traditionally the things that the dying contemplate on before the inevitable, or to put another way, they are the four things that the dead encounter after death.

In society in general death is marginalised. In former generations death usually occurred at home and was followed by burial in the churchyard at the centre of the community; more typically nowadays death happens in an institution followed by a funeral at an out of town venue. In order to put off the idea of our mortality we use an increasing array of means to mitigate the effects of ageing - creams, diets, exercise, surgery etc. And its not just that purple is the new black, no, today 60 is the new 40.

Funerals themselves have changed. In the Book of Common Prayer there the service was frankly entitled ‘Burial of the dead’. More and more we have ‘Services of Thanksgiving.’ The funeral is turned into a version of ‘This is your life’; the death of the subject is conveniently ignored. And even within supposedly Christian funerals there is pressure for elements which are scarcely compatible with Christian belief. All too often I am asked if we can have what purports to be a poem about death:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was…

These words were written by Henry Scott Holland when he was a Canon of St Paul’s cathedral in London. But they weren’t written as a poem, these words, and the longer version usually quoted, were part of a sermon. Scott Holland fashions these words to encapsulate one response to death, a response which often comes in the immediate wake of a death but which swiftly evaporates. Alongside this response to death he expressed another view,

Death ‘makes all we do here meaningless and empty…. It is the cruel ambush into which we are snared... It is the pit of destruction. It wrecks, it defeats, it shatters It makes its horrible breach in our gladness with careless and inhuman disregard of us. We get no consideration from it. Often and often it stumbles in
like an evil mischance, like a feckless misfortune. Its shadow falls across our natural sunlight, and we are swept off into some black abyss. There is no light or hope in the grave; there is no reason to be wrung out of it.’


Though from the same Scott Holland sermon, this extract is not read at funerals.
But death for the Christian is neither ‘nothing at all’ nor is there ‘no light or hope in the grave’, as the Canon goes on to explain.

Paul writes in Rom 6:23 ‘the wages of sin is death’. Death is a serious thing, it is not a trivial or illusory as the first scenario from Scott Holland suggests. But Paul’s verse continues ‘but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’. Therefore the second scenario from Scott Holland is also wide of the mark. For us as Christians therefore we can own on the one hand the seriousness of death, but also to our hope that it does not have the final word; hence Paul can taunt death, I Cor 15:55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O grave, is your sting?"

Christian hope in the face of death is an abiding trust in the God who called us out of nothing into life and who will call us again to life out of the second nothing of death. We have no security in ourselves, no false hopes, no naive longings. Our only ground for hope is the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

This hope is founded on expectation - on the expectation that death is not the end of life and that hope is rooted in God alone. Our expectations lie in the promise of a reliable God who already, in Christ, set the action of our resurrection in motion. God defeated death by raising Christ from the dead at Easter, and his resurrection is the assurance and beginning our of resurrection.

Death reminds us that we are indeed mortal. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. But remember out of that dust God made human beings and to that dust he gave the gift of life an through faith in Christ he brings that dust to the kingdom of heaven.

Death reminds us of the weakness but also the glory of humanity. Weakness because the universe ultimately defeats us, brings us to dissolution and reminds us that we are dust just dust. We must never be tempted to see Christ’s own death as at best God’s identification to our plight or at worst God’s last ditch rescue mission, for Christ’s death on the cross stands between our fallenness and our fulfilment, between the dust from which we come and the glory towards which we move, between Eden and the New Jerusalem. The resurrection of Jesus confirms this for us. We may be dust, but we assured through the resurrection of Christ, that we are glorious dust through the will of Him who had the first word not allowing death to have the last word. Amen

The Buncefield Trial is to begin... here is the text of the press release from the HSE...

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE)and the Environment Agency (the EA) are to prosecute five companies following the explosions and fire at the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in December 2005.Criminal proceedings have been commenced against Total UK Ltd, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd; British Pipeline Agency Ltd;TAV Engineering Ltd; and Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd following a thorough and complex criminal investigationconducted by the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency.

The initial court date has been fixed for 23 January 2009 at West Hertfordshire Magistrates Court, Clarendon Road,Watford,Hertfordshire, WD17 1ST. The prosecution ofthe five defendants in relation to the Buncefield incident is now a matter for the Court. HSEand theEA are unable to comment further on the decision to prosecute.Notes to editors:

1. On 11 December 2005, a number of explosions occurred at Buncefield Oil Storage Depot in Hemel Hempstead. At least one of the initial explosions was of massive proportions and there was a large fire and over 40 people were injured. Following the explosion,aMajor Incident Investigation Board (MIIB) was established by the Health and Safety Commission, supported by theBoard of the Environment Agency, under section 14 (2)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.Lord Newton was appointed to chair the MIIB whichhas carried out an extensive investigation into the causes of the incident and ways to avoid similar incidents in the futureand has published a number of reports.

2. The Government responded to the work of the MIIB on 13 November 2008. Lord McKenzie, DWP Minister responsible for health and safety made a written statement in the House of Lords.

3. The EA in England and Wales,Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)in Scotland, and HSE are jointly responsible (the Competent Authority) for regulating non nuclear major hazardous industrial sites in the UK under the Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations 1999 (COMAH). COMAH requires operators of major hazard sites subject to the Regulations to take all measures necessary to prevent major accidents and limit their consequences to persons and the environment. Operators of top tier COMAH sites (like Buncefield) are also required to submit written safety reports to the Competent Authority; and to prepare emergency plans to deal with the consequences of a major accident. Operators and others (including contractors, designers and suppliers) also have relevant duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and under other environmental legislation to protect land, air and water, including the Water Resources Act 1991.

4. The MIIB was not appointed to take any decisions on legal proceedings that fall to be considered under the criminal investigation.Decisions on criminal proceedings are forHSE and theEA (and HSE andSEPA in Scotland) as the enforcing authorities under the relevant regulations.

5. The details of the charges are as follows:

5.1 Total UK Ltd of 40 Clarendon Road, Watford, Hertfordshire, is facing three charges:Between the 1st day of January 2003 and the 12th day of December 2005 Total UK Ltd failed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of its employees, contrary to Section 2(1) and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.Between the 1st day of January 2003 and 12th day of December 2005, Total UK Ltd failed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment were not exposed to risks to their health or safety, contrary to Sections 3(1) and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.Between the 10th day of December 2005 and the 31st day of December 2005, Total UK Ltd caused polluting matter, namely fuel and firewater chemicals to enter controlled waters, namely ground waters in the chalk aquifer underlying the vicinity of Buncefield, contrary to sections 85(1) and (6) of the Water Resources Act 1991.

5.2 Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd, of 40 Clarendon Road, Watford, Hertfordshire, is facing two charges:Between the 1st day of January 2003 and the 12th day of December 2005, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd failed to take all measures necessary to prevent major accidents and limit their consequences to persons and the environment, contrary to Regulation 4 of the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 and section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.Between the 10th day of December 2005 and the 31st day of December 2005, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd caused polluting matter, namely fuel and firewater chemicals to enter controlled waters, namely ground waters in the chalk aquifer underlying the vicinity of Buncefield, contrary to s.85(1) and (6) of the Water Resources Act 1991.

5.3British Pipeline Agency Ltd, of 5 – 7 Alexandra Road, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, is facing two charges:Between the 18th day of November 2001 and the 12th day of December 2005, British Pipeline Agency Ltd failed to take all measures necessary to prevent major accidents and limit their consequences to persons and the environment, contrary to Regulation 4 of the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 and section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.Between the 10th day of December 2005 and the 31st day of December 2005, British Pipeline Agency Ltd caused polluting matter, namely fuel and firewater chemicals to enter controlled waters, namely ground waters in the chalk aquifer underlying the vicinity of Buncefield, contrary to s.85(1) and (6) of the Water Resources Act 1991.

5.4 TAV Engineering Ltd, of The Oriel, Sydenham Road, Guildford, Surrey, is facing one charge:Between the 1st day of October 2003 and the 12th day of December 2005, TAV Engineering Limited failed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment were not exposed to risks to their health or safety, contrary to Sections 3(1) and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.5.5 Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd, c/o Rooney Associates 2nd Floor, 19 Castle Street, Liverpool, is facing one charge:Between the 28th day of September 2003 and the 12th day of December 2005 Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Limited failed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment were not exposed to risks to their health or safety, contrary to Sections 3(1) and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974...