This slime volume
tells the tale of the Changi Cross, a brass Altar Cross made by
British Prisoners of War after the fall of Singapore, and taken with
the PoWs when they are moved to build the Thai-Burma Railway – aka
the death railway.
It is also the tale
of the ministry of Eric Cordingly, an Army Chaplain and PoW, told by
his daughter.
The subtitle “A
Symbol of Hope in the Shadow of Death” in many ways says it all –
speaking both of the particular object, the Changi Cross, but also of
the Cross in general – there was an immediacy of the Shadow for the
PoWs but it is still there throughout life.
Also that part of
the Cross is made of a shell casing has a certain echo – it was all
they had to hand, and yet there seems to be some kind of message
there.
I have long been
drawn to military Chaplaincy, in it there is an acute expression of
Christian service – that the Chaplain will forego the possibility
of escape to remain with the men and women in their charge is very
powerful, it is the essence of the cure of soul, the priest is bound
to the people in ways that go beyond any other.
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