A different kind of worship

We had bagpipes at church yesterday. And a bugler. It was 11 November, so for the British and Canadians it was Remembrance Sunday. It was the biggest crowd I've ever seen there, and was probably especially big since this is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele. The place was packed with UK and Canadian troops, all in dress uniforms; that alone was worth the price of admission (okay, so they don't charge admission...even if they are Anglicans). Linda, you would have just fainted dead away. During the part of service set aside for the actually remembering, the piper played a lament as he crossed from one end of the chapel to the other, the bugler played "The Last Post," and after a time of silence the bugler sounded "The Reveille" (not the one we're used to). It was quite moving. There was also some actual worship in there, and at the end they sang "God Save the Queen" and "O Canada!" I refrained from doing anything obnoxiously colonial, like singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at the top of my lungs during "God Save the Queen," but I was singing it in my head. I did sing along with the Canadians, though, in sort of in a spirt of continental solidarity.