The Graveyard's Testimony

I hate funerals. Hate them. Dad always took me to funerals and visitations especially when I was a kid. People would question him about taking me to so many and he would say "well he might as well get used to it." In reality, it had the opposite effect. I never have "gotten used to it".

But I have always been intrigued by cemeteries and graveyards. Especially old ones. You see a lot of interesting things there. The engraving on a Civil War era headstone in Cade's Cove near Gatlinburg reads "killed by North Carolina rebels".

One of the things you begin to notice are the number of young children and infants that are in these graveyards. Some stillborn, some a few days old, some only a few years old.  You see far fewer of these as you get to our present time. Innovations in medical science and access to better nutrition has caused there to be far fewer early age deaths.

The markers for these infants and children speak to me. They speak of the care the parents had for these children. That the parent would spend money to place a marker there for a young child or for an infant that they never were able to have a relationship with. My own grandparents had to deal with 2 stillborn babies before my mother was born. As this was during the great depression, and my family only ever being one of moderate means at best, there is no marker on the graves of babies who would have been my uncles. There was once a simple wooden cross; that's the best they could do.

But the care that was taken by children's parents to mark that they had once been born or even stillborn in this world, a remembrance of them......

This morning as I walked through the cemetery in which at least 5 generations of my family lay at rest, I began to wonder:

How many graveyards would it take to bury all of the children who have been aborted by our nation?

There is no marker, no stone of remembrance for these babies. No, the remains of these children have been incinerated, thrown in the trash heap, or sold (in an indictment of our capitalistic, pragmatic society) for spare parts.

The graveyard testifies against our generation. Our forebears used valuable resources to mark the passing of  precious lives. They wanted to make sure they were remembered, even if the only life their little bodies ever sustained was within the womb. They regarded life, and the loss of it, as important.

The graveyard testifies that we have lost our value for life.

2018....thank u, next

2018. Wow. I am not sad to see you pass. Or maybe, I'm really glad to see you go. Cartoon depictions often show the new year as a baby and the passing year as an old man. If I could get my hands on 2018, I might get charged with elder abuse. 

But it's not really 2018's fault. 

There were a lot of things that happened in 2018 that were unexpected. And my reaction to these things wasn't expected. 

I went to 5 funerals, and could have gone to several more. We lost 3 church members. I participated in some capacity in 4 of the 5 funerals. I told an old friend of my dad's who is a funeral director that if I had to carry many more coffins, I was going into his line of work. 

There were friends and mentors who dealt with serious healthy issues this year. I didn't take nearly enough time to support these people the way I should have. But it did prompt me to finally start getting serious about my own health. 

But the thing that was the biggest issue wasn't all the bad things going on around me. It was the way i reacted to these things. I became withdrawn, isolated. Way too deep in my own head. Way too focused on the negative. 

In the closing of his letter to the Philippians, Paul instructs them this way: 

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

Yeah there's plenty of bad to think about. Yeah this world isn't at all like perfection. But it does very little good to dwell on these things continually. 

So if I have resolved to do anything in 2019 (and I don't make resolutions), then I have resolved to think on better things. We are bombarded with enough negativity from all sides: from the news, from the talking heads, from our political "leaders". 

We (and I) must remember there is a great deal of beauty, of truth, of excellence all around us if we just look for it. 

So 2018, don't let the door hit you on the way out. 

2019.....I just believe I'm going to be a little bit better this year.