By their deeds shall you know them

by Peter Woodward, 7 Mar 2009. Archived.

I was struck by the local press reaction to the recent visit to Dresden by the Mayor and Bishop of Coventry.  2009 is the 50^th Anniversary of the twinning of Coventry and Dresden, adding a special dimension to this year’s commemoration of the destruction of the city on 13^th February 1945.

Back home, one set of Coventry Telegraph headlines questioned the Mayor’s method of transport to Dresden, both in terms of cost to the local taxpayer and the size of his carbon footprint. Hmm!  The other shrieked  ‘Bishop of Coventry apologises for bombing’.  You can read the actual text of the sermon given in Frauenkirche on the Coventry Diocese web site:  http://www.coventry.anglican.org/news/pressreleases/opt/5/item/537 .   Letters of outrage and support followed in equal measure.  It was a salutary reminder of how easy it is for words offered in good faith to be deliberately misconstrued to suit the cause of reader or listener.   Incidentally, I thoroughly recommend ‘Dresden’ by Fredrick Taylor for anyone seeking insights into the context and horrifying events of 14^th February 1945.

I contrast this flurry of words in the Telegraph with a recent experience spent in the company of CAIF, The Coventry Association for International Friendship (www.caif.net).  This group was formed in 1962 and has kept alive people to people links to our twin cities across the world. 

On a recent cold February evening there was a modest turn out to a CAIF meeting on Dresden.  Our very own Pat Holmes introduced a film about the rebuilding of the ‘Coventry Wing’ of the Deaconess Hospital on the banks of the Elbe, destroyed in the bombing. Some of you may have seen it. Now with a commentary, it records the audacious physical project inspired by Provost Williams, supported by a valiant team of 35 volunteers.  Pat co-ordinated the fundraising appeal.

The film vividly portrays the physical effort, the sweat and the pain of this enterprise.  Yet shining through it all was love and friendship.  This was one of our Cathedral community’s finest moments of reaching out and doing something for others.  A powerful practical and symbolic act.

I felt a similar strong reaction last summer when a group of young people from across the world at a conference on reconciliation, spent a morning helping to spruce up the Haigh Chapel in our own ruins. Under the guidance of the Friends, there was much fun and laughter and some good honest labour. The transformation achieved was remarkable and so satisfying.

I’m sure that a bit of physical effort, offered in friendship, can sometimes speak more eloquently than a thousand carefully rehearsed words. Maybe together we should view the film of ‘Operation Reconciliation’ and see what action it might inspire among the Friends of Coventry Cathedral.

And here are a couple of ideas.  Later this year, how about a group of the Friends going to physically plant 2009 snowdrops in the grounds of the Deaconess Hospital in Dresden?  It would keep that bond of friendship and reconciliation alive through one simple poetic action.

Maybe we should also create opportunities for pilgrims from around the world to do something simple but practical that leaves a beneficial mark at our Cathedral – weeding, repairing choir scores, cleaning brass, dusting our hidden corners, re-varnishing benches in the ruins…..

What do you think?  Were you involved back in the Dresden project in the sixties and what impact did it have on you and others?  What do you think of the snowdrops idea?  Do you have a better idea?  And what do you think of the power of deeds over words?