In the sixth of his meditations for Lent, Leo Cushley, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, looks beyond the shouting crowds that welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem to the pain and victory yet to come
There is a remarkable example of what in the movie world is called a “long take” towards the end of the 2007 film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, which captures the terror and tedium of Dunkirk 1940.
Almost halfway through a four-minute tracking shot, the camera sweeps up towards a bandstand where a bedraggled platoon of Tommies is attempting to maintain hope with a hearty rendition of John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”.
“Drop Thy still dews of quietness, / Till all our strivings cease; / Take from our souls the strain and stress, / And let our ordered lives confess / The beauty of Thy peace.”