Tomorrow is ANZAC Day and instead of services, we are invited to Stand at Dawn… to be at our gates for 2 minutes silence at 6am and then listen to the service broadcast on RNZ. With Pippins and Brownies I have made lanterns out of milk bottles with poppies drawn on the side. Reuben’s schoolwork has involved creating poppies and Facebook has many ideas for poppies to go with our bears in windows and on our fences.

The red or Flanders poppy has been linked with battlefield deaths since the Great War (1914–18). The plant was one of the first to grow and bloom on battlefields in the Belgian region of Flanders. The connection was made, most famously, by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian medical officer in his poem, 'In Flanders fields', written after conducting a funeral of a friend who died in battle.

The poppy became a symbol of keeping the faith –to not forget what these people died for. They quickly became the chosen symbol of remembrance and then the method of fundraising for RSAs around the world. Although poppies are not for sale this year due to COVID19, the poppy will still be seen in our communities.

So as we make our poppies in the manse, we will remember them. But we will also recognise that the poppy is not only the symbol of mass suffering and sacrifice, it is also the symbol of hope –that life comes from those places of suffering. The poppy seeds in the glasshouse will grow, because out of death, comes life.