Memorial Day

Friends,

            Memorial Day is just around the corner.  In Hagerman we will meet at 10:00 a.m. at the cemetery for a service - the Rev. Jim Bignell bringing the message.  Don't forget: those who are willing and able can come the night before on Sunday at 6:00 p.m. to help put flags out.  What follows is one of my favorite Memorial Day reflections, attributed to the Rev. John Caughron, Center Point, Iowa.  Enjoy. 

                                                                        Still in one peace, Stephen

Here, amid the glory of flags and flowers,

Here, in the somber embrace of memories more precious than any gold,

We have come to be renewed.

Here, upon this gentle hilltop, caressed by spring breezes, and peopled by stones of remembrance,

Here, under tall trees old before our birth and yet still young after we shall have gone home,

Here, in keen awareness of the mysteries of life and death,

We have come to remember.

Here, in the company of our friends and families,

Here, with the children entrusted to our raising,

Here, in the sight of our Creator,

We have come to give thanks.

Here, where rest the fallen heroes of the generations past,

We tread with reverent step and slow,

Pondering the dedication of those who gave their lives,

and wondering how we may measure up in our time...

Whether we hold those values so precious, so dear,

that they are worth the risk of everything else in life in order to preserve and protect them.

It is beyond our knowing now whether these honored dead thought such deep thoughts then.

It is enough to believe that in spite of hesitation, fear, or impossible odds,

When Freedom was at stake and Liberty on the line, they were there with

pounding heart and quaking chest, willing nevertheless

to take the risk and give up all they cherished for the sake of something more.

And we, the heirs of their valor and the beneficiaries of their sacrifice,

            Can do no less this day than to honor their memory with a solemn pledge:

            To work for peace in a violent world,

            To stand for justice in an unjust world,

            To foster freedom in a power-mad world,

So that today's children do not have to become tomorrow's fallen heroes,

So that there need be no more broken boys, broken hearts, broken family circles,

So that we and people everywhere may sustain the patterns of peace, and

that the blessings of genuine liberty may abundantly bless the children of a wholesome and peaceful world.

It is well that we are here to remind ourselves again of the true and painful costs of war.

Not only does that disorder exact the lives of warriors and innocents,

and crush the hopes and dreams of loved ones, but as President

Eisenhower forced us to admit:

            "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired

            signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not

            fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat

of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children.

That is not a way of life at all in any true sense--

it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Here, upon this living, green grass,

Here, amid the glory of flags and flowers,

Here, in the somber embrace of memories more precious than any gold,

We have come to remember, to be renewed, and to give thanks.

In this silent moment, so let us do.