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By Joel Penhorwood, Ohio Ag Net
When was the last time you walked through a cemetery? Was it last Memorial Day? Perhaps it was visiting a family member gone too soon? Or maybe you can’t remember when it was?
Similarly, when was the last time you spent in quiet?
In this world of phone calls, smartphone notifications, and social media updates, and just plain old noise, we often don’t have time for the one of the most essential things of all – reflection.
It’s in this spirit that I encourage us all to reexamine Memorial Day in our lives. This unique holiday is a time set aside specifically for such moments of peace and reflection, curiously offered through its exact opposite – the death of soldiers who have given their lives, often in a demise of chaos and noise.
How can we renew Memorial Day in our all-too-busy lives?
The quiet of a cemetery is something special. If we allow its gentle whispering spirit into our busy, noisy lives, we may find it speaking to our hearts.
Just down the road from where I live, we have one of the prettiest little cemeteries this side of heaven. Last year, I took a stroll through its paths on Memorial Day weekend. My walk found wind rustling through the trees and the site of small American flags waving across the graves of past military personnel. Along with those sights, I found something else – questions that swirled in my mind.
What did these men and women we celebrate on Memorial Day die for? What does it mean to me? What horrors did they experience that I don’t have to? How old were these soldiers when they died? What dreams were buried here, unfinished? When was the last time I thought to be thankful? Would I have had the courage to do what they did?
As these thoughts raced in my head, the sudden sound of chimes somewhere in the distance broke the silence, wiped these things away, and I found myself staring at the grave of a World War II solder that died, barely seeing 20.
Then, peace settled in.
It was that in my seeking of these questions, I was gifted understanding. Our very ability to look for these answers through peaceful reflection is a gift unto itself, given to us by those who have died for our freedom.
So, this Memorial Day season, I encourage you to take time to visit your local cemetery. Maybe it’s after the speakers have done their thing and others are headed to their cars. Take a detour, walk to a corner you’ve never been – look at headstones, read the names, and ask yourself those questions.
Seek peace in a place near those who made it possible.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13
