Little Stone Bridges and Why We Fight for Them II

Just over a year ago I posted a link to Stand Firm's Little Stone Bridges piece which was written just after the Episcopal Church's 2006 General Convention. Today I was talking to some folk about why I'm still here (in the Anglican Church of Canada, that is) and was reminded of that piece. Sarah Hey wrote:

Inevitably in the times surrounding a fierce, heated battle a soldier must think occasionally "What on earth am I doing out here in the middle of nowhere, fighting for this silly little piece of land that my unit leader has told me to go out and take? It's not worth the bloodshed, I see no tactical or strategic merit to it, and besides, I could get killed for pretty much no reason other than taking that knoll, or traversing the river, or battling all day across this field. I have much better and even more useful things to do back in my tent."

St Barnabas, for me, is like one of the little stone bridges. It's a bit of an outpost, of not much tactical or strategic importance in the grand scheme of things.

It is old, and its architect had an artist's heart, but it has clearly seen better days. Save for those fighting over it, there aren't a whole lot of people around, either to take note of the melee and carry news back to others, or to take part in the battle. It is unlikely that we will receive reinforcements.

And so here we are, rather like those silly men at the Alamo or those foolish Polish men and women of the Warsaw Uprising who took the Nazis on in World War II, although we are nowhere near as heroic as they and have nowhere near as much at stake as they did. Perhaps we're not going to "win," either.

But for some very strange reason, a number of us -- a small unit -- are being told to fight for this bridge.

And so I am and we are.

Read Sarah's whole post here. And now she's also written a whole book on the subject, Little Stone Bridges: A Battle Plan for Christians in a Faith Under Siege.