Canadian Churches and the First World War.

Here is some good news for Remembrance Day: Yesterday I received a copy of Canadian Churches and the First World War, a newly-published collection of scholarly essays on the impact of the Great War on various religious groups in Canada. I mention this here because the British edition of the book has one of my photos on the cover, duly credited in a blurb on the back. The photo in question first appeared in a Remembrance Day post published here two years ago, and I was both surprised and moved when a representative of the publisher contacted me a few months ago and asked for my permission to use the image; as you can see from the results, I readily agreed.

For me, one of the strange things about keeping a blog is the unpredictable results generated (and not generated) by one's work. Oftentimes, posts that took considerable time and effort to produce and reflect a great deal of personal commitment seem to receive little or no response, while other posts that were quickly and less carefully assembled generate positive comments. In some cases, the most gratifying response comes long after the post was published - such was the case with the Remembrance Day post mentioned above, and such was also the case with a 2011 Holy Thursday post discussing Rudolf Mauersberger's motet Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst, on which account I later received appreciative mention in the liner notes of a CD featuring a new recording of the same motet. It's all a bit of a mystery to me, and rather than seek to provide an explanation I'll rest content to note the phenomenon and to give thanks. As I do each year on Remembrance Day, I also give thanks for all those who have sacrificed their lives so that others might live. AMDG.