All Saints

Many Brits mistake the multitude of crosses strewn in the European countryside and particularly those alongside roads to be memorials to  people killed in car accidents. Sadly many are but a great number are simply erected as "Field Crosses" to ask the Lord to protect the land that had for centuries seen so much despair, war, hunger, destruction, plague, death, hardship.

Centuries of almost non-stop war gets in to the DNA where there is a yearning for peace. Germany being in the centre of Europe, has seen armies from other countries march all over it. The Swedish army were once very big down here in Swabia, even to Switzerland. Napoleon's army was here.  Never mind all the old Roman stuff.

Other countries that haven't had that chaos and angst in the last 1,000 odd years, don't realise how valuable 75 years of peace is. It's worth a lot more than 10% on the cost of a new car.

Today, All Saints, is a public holiday in the catholic parishes of Bavaria & Germany. The protestants had their public holiday yesterday, Normally everybody would be attending organised afternoon services at all the cemeteries around the country to remember the family dead. This Corona year it will be pretty empty.

I wonder if in late 2021 or 2022 people will erect memorials to thank God for freeing them from the virus and asking her/his help to ensure it never happens again.