Gravesite Thoughts

Usually we visit family graves around Memorial Day…or certainly by mid-June…and plant flowers around the tombstones.  It has been traditional, because it was Bill’s Dad’s habit, and as he aged and could not do this alone, we were drawn into it.  But this year…..I don’t know what happened, but it is mid-July and the task was not done until today, and not done to the extent of previous years.

Several generations of Bill’s Dad’s side of the family are buried in a cemetery in Antwerp, New York. Since no longer having his own greenhouses, Bill’s Dad would order geraniums from a local nursery.  We would load up the car with the flowers, fertilizer, mulch, tools, and bottles of water, since there is no water source in that cemetery.  Later, we would go to the cemetery on the north side of Watertown, where Bill’s Mom’s side of the family is buried, and finally to the cemetery on the south side where my parents are buried.

Last year, Bill’s Dad passed away.  This year we did not get to Antwerp at all.  No flowers were ordered ahead, and by now, everything was picked over and scraggly looking.  We were so late planting that we ended up running around to FIVE different stores before we found flowers that were acceptable to Bill for his parents’ gravesite, my parents’ gravesite, and that of a family friend whose grave we always take care of.

Being in our 70s ourselves, this is quite a bit of effort, and I did considerable thinking while turning over the soil and trying to remove the roots of last year’s plants.

*This is an awful lot of work to do for people who don’t even know we are doing it.  I sure am glad my shoulder fracture is well healed.

*I tried to decrease the work by suggesting to Bill that instead of continuing to plant a big circle around the main tombstone where his parents are buried, we could just plant a row on either side.  Nope.  It had to be done the way his Dad had done it.

*No one is doing this for my grandparents’ graves which are a 3 hour car ride away.  This seems especially a shame, because my mother’s father so faithfully cared for the graves of his deceased family members.  He also absolutely loved flowers.

*The odds aren’t good that anyone will do this for Bill and me.  Oldest daughter is in a wheelchair and although, she likes to garden, getting into the right position to do the work in a cemetery probably won’t be possible.  Daughter #2 says she is eventually moving to a commune, so she’s probably out.  Daughter #3 lives very far away.  Although she likes to garden, she is not into traditions like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, so what are the odds she would think about planting gravesites?  #1 Son has declared that he is as sentimental as a brick, and he also lives on the other side of the country, so I’m not expecting anything from him in this department.

*So what to do with our mortal remains????  If we are cremated, we still have to figure out what to do with the ashes.

Eventually, I got distracted from these thoughts leaving my questions unanswered.  After planting the flowers in front of my parents’ tombstone, I poured on a healthy supply of water and to my amazement, scores of ants came scurrying out of the ground and crawled all over the stone.  There must be a huge ant colony either under the headstone or under the area where the flowers are planted, and watering flooded their home.

I noticed a wheelbarrow of sand just behind my parents’ headstone and wondered who had left it there and why.  Just as we were finishing up, I realized that there must be a burial about to take place.  A cemetery worker arrived and spread out a piece of artificial grass a couple of rows away.  Two young men in military uniforms arrived and were standing around obviously waiting.  We left before a hearse and procession appeared.  I suppose the sand was there for fill in the newly dug grave.

So, I am home now and wondering…

Will anyone notice that the usual geraniums are missing from the family graves in Antwerp?

Would Bill’s Dad be upset at the pitiful scraggly geraniums we planted over his grave?

With apologies to Christian Rossetti, who is dead and doesn’t know anyway….

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no scraggly geranium,

Nor brown and wilted pansy:

The ants that crawl above me,

With your watering can don’t wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

The Last Breath

The last breath will come

And one of us will go on alone.

Synchrony gone.

Unity shattered.

For decades we have sung,

Harmonizing our voices,

Breathing in unison,

Avoiding discord.

Hundreds of times, skating

We have coordinated limbs,

Responding to subtle motions

Of the other.

Thousands of times

We have kissed, caressed,

Making our physical bodies,

Into one flesh.

Myriads of times,

We have blended our minds,

Our thoughts, our purpose,

Toward a mutual goal.

But one future day,

The movement will stop,

The very fabric of life,

Will be painfully torn.

And with that last breath,

A question will hang

Unanswered in the air.

How does one live alone?

When the Foundations are Destroyed

When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3

I absolutely understand why people who are gay and want to be married would feel that they are being discriminated against.   Given the attitudes in our society which are now prevalent, marriage would seem to be a “right.”  Homosexual conduct is no longer seen as SIN.  Although other innate biological inclinations, such as a tendency to violence, are not condoned, homosexual inclinations are no longer seen as deviance.

But…that is because over the past several decades some foundational truths have been destroyed.

*God may or may not even exist.  If He does exist, He may not be the Creator, so what He says about how we are made, doesn’t matter.

*The Bible is no longer accepted as the Word of God and an “owner’s manual” for how human beings and their society best function.  It has become an irrelevant book of myths

*God’s provision for sex as a means of pleasure, procreation, and a symbol of His love for “the Church” has been distorted beyond recognition.  One man and one woman united for a life-time is a joke.  Sex outside of the bonds of marriage has become the norm.  No one bats an eye at pregnancy out of wedlock, hook-ups, affairs, and bed-hopping.

As we, as a society, have exercised our right to ignore God, the Bible, and His intent for sex, we have destroyed foundations essential to our own well-being.  The foundations of our society are crumbling, but the media is clueless and celebrating.

Here is the problem for those of us who still believe in God and believe the Bible is relevant.  We have read Romans 1:18-32.  Some excerpts….

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator….because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.  Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

So…those of us who believe the Bible is God’s truth, see the Supreme Court’s approval of gay marriage as another step in the destruction of our society.  We are not celebrating.  We are saddened, but not really surprised.  According to Romans 1, this is the expected outcome when a society abandons God.  Our collective sin as a society has an impact on the lives of individuals.  No one can stand on a crumbling foundation.

There is only one hope for us.  Repentance and rebuilding on the only sure foundation which cannot crumble.

Each one should be careful how he builds.  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.  I Corinthians 3:10-11

Of Dead Mice and Flawed Men

Decades ago, I was playing a game with a group of people, and I drew a card that instructed me to share something I feared.  I honestly couldn't think of anything I feared at the time, but I have been reminded many times since of my phobia.  I have a horrible fear of dead mice....not live ones....dead ones.  I can hold a pet mouse.  I can watch one run around outside...or even inside after the initial scream from being startled.  But, I totally freak out over dead mice.

Today, Bill and I were at our cottage cleaning up for the season.  I always put out D-Con in the fall.  As I cleaned the cottage today, I discovered every single D-Con package was empty.  I began to wonder where the mice had gone to die.  I wasn't noticing an odor anywhere....although they don't usually rot with the D-Con.  They just sort of shrivel up and don't smell.

Eventually, I came to the time that I was ready to mop, and I needed to change the sponge on the mop.  I was having trouble getting it off, so I opened the drawer with the tools.  Ugh!  It smelled like mousy-pee and there was an obvious nest with the back end and tail of a dead mouse sticking out of it.  I ran for my husband.

What, you may wonder, is the reason for this totally irrational aversion to dead mice?  

When I was a child, we lived in a house in the middle of an open field.  It wasn't unusual for a field mouse to find its way inside.  My Dad would set a trap and catch the mouse.  THEN...he would take the dead mouse by the tail and chase me around the house with it.  I have no idea why he thought this was funny.  He didn't seem to realize he was completely terrorizing me.  On one occasion he came up behind me, pulled open the back of the neck of my shirt and pretended he was going to drop the mouse into it.  I developed the habit of locking myself in the bathroom when he was about to empty the trap.  Once he even came to the bathroom door and said, "Honey, I got rid of it," but when I opened the door he was swinging it by the tail right at my face.  From then on, I would not unlock the bathroom door until my Mother came to the door and told me he had disposed of it.

My Dad was basically a nice man.  He was a Christian, and he didn't believe in lying.  How he could have excluded this game of his from his normal standard of conduct, I do NOT know.  He had some other "games" I found unpleasant which he seemed to believe were funny.  He also had some "pet names" for me that were ego-bruising.  I suppose this behavior had something to do with his own father's conduct.

The  point is, even though this has had a lasting effect that I can't seem to get over, I do have to forgive him for it.  He was flawed, but then, so am I.  Every one of us lacks insight in some area of our life.  There are, for each of us, some areas in which our perception just doesn't match that of the rest of the world, or perhaps, that of one person who is harmed by our actions.

As Christians, we are recipients of the grace of God in our lives.  He forgives our sins...and that includes the personality quirks that we spend a life-time struggling against.  We have an obligation to forgive others...even before they ask for our forgiveness...even if they never ask for our forgiveness,   We have an obligation to extend grace to other flawed men and women.

The Cyclops by Euripides

Silenus, a great lover of wine and servant of the god of wine (Bromius or Bacchus) has been captured by the Cyclops, along with a group of satyrs, which he refers to as his children.  The one-eyed, man-eating monster holds them in slavery to tend his flocks.  Cyclops drinks only milk, and eats cheese and goat flesh, when human flesh is not available.

 Odysseus and his crew are misfortunate, and while returning from the battle in Ilium, they are driven by the wind and up on the shore near the cave of the Cyclops.  Silenus agrees to sell them food and drink in exchange for the flask of wine which Odysseus is carrying.  He goes into great raptures over the aroma and taste, and is willing to risk the displeasure of the Cyclops for the wine.  However, when the Cyclops returns, he tries to pretend that Odysseus has beaten him and is stealing the provisions.

Cyclops is delighted to see Odysseus and his crew, because he hasn’t had human meat in some time and is looking forward to gorging himself on it.  After he has killed, cooked and eaten two of Odysseus’ crew members, Odysseus convinces him to taste the wine.  He manages to get the Cyclops thoroughly drunk, and when he falls asleep, Odysseus burns out his single eye with a brand from the fire.  The satyrs are supposed to help with this, but they are cowardly and come up with ridiculous excuses for not being helpful.

Odysseus and his crew escape while Cyclops blindly stumbles around looking for “Noman,” which is what Odysseus has given as his name.  The satyrs are happy to go off with Odysseus, hoping to be reunited with the god of wine.

This was probably an amusing play to watch being performed.  I’m not sure why people stumbling around in drunkenness is amusing, but it is not an uncommon gag in plays and movies.  The glories of wine are extolled throughout the play.  Silenus says it is a “joyless land” where there is no wine, and that wine brings the “oblivion of woe.”

Silenus is also a great one for changing loyalties.  At one point, he tries to convince Cyclops that if he eats Odysseus….including, his tongue…he will become “a monstrous clever talker.”

Cyclops, for his part, recognizes no god as an authority over him, declaring that his belly is “the greatest of deities.”

This is the last play by Euripides in the series I am reading, and I am glad to bid him adieu.  He simply cannot resist nasty comments about women.  In The Cyclops, he states, “Would there had never been a race of women born into the world at all, unless it were for me alone!”

The Best of Worship

I guess I am old.  I have a great deal of difficulty identifying with and enjoying present day music…not just the secular type, but also the worship music currently utilized in most churches. 

First of all, it is terribly repetitive.  Sometimes phrases are repeated dozens of times, verses are repeated over and over, and many of the songs have similar lyrics. There is certainly a place for repetition, but when I compare modern worship choruses with the rich doctrinal statements in many of the old hymns, the difference is notable.  An understanding of the deeper concepts of our Christian faith was often derived from phrases in hymns.  Many old hymns are mini-sermons.

Secondly, many of the modern songs aren’t very “sing-able.”  The audience/congregation struggles to sing along.  They can’t find the melody line, much less be able to figure out a way to sing harmony.  The ability to fully participate is lost for those of us who “read music,” when all we have is the words and no access to the notes.  The beauty of music is obscured without a clear melody and harmony.

Thirdly, it is tempting to wonder if true heartfelt worship is being replaced by the lifting of hands and other physical motions.  If these are sincere, that’s great…but what is happening inside the heart is more important.  I feel that lifting my heart and voice is more important than lifting my hands.

Every time I see familiar hymn lyrics on the projection screen, I am tempted to get excited thinking we are about to sing an old hymn.  Then I discover the lyrics are being sung with a different tune which has no interesting melody to reinforce the meaning, and something else mundane has been stuck in between the verses.

Sigh….

In my entire life, the most intense worship I have felt in singing took place in the 1960s while I was a student at Wheaton College.  I don’t remember who was in charge of chapel that day, but we were told that we would be singing the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  It is true that this hymn was very familiar to me.  I had probably sung is a hundred times before.  It does also utilize repetition, although the repetitive portions are interspersed with statements about the nature of God Himself.  What made this experience unique was that we were instructed to sing a cappella, and the first verse was to be sung only by the sopranos.  The altos were to join in on the second verse, the tenors on the third and the basses on the fourth and final verse.  There were about 2000 young adults present.

The sopranos only on the first verse created a light and ethereal sound.

Holy, holy, holy!  Lord God Almighty.

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and Mighty

God in three persons, blessed trinity.

The altos joining on the second produced a sweet harmony. 

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee.

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.

Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee

Which wert and art and evermore shall be.

When the tenors joined, the harmony was richer.

Holy, holy, holy!  Though the darkness hide Thee.

Tho’ the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see.

Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee,

Perfect in pow’r, in love, in purity.

But, when the basses boomed in on the final verse, creating the full four-part harmony, I felt as though a jolt of electricity passed down my spinal column.  My spirit soared upward with my voice.

Holy, holy, holy!  Lord God Almighty.

All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea.

Holy, holy, holy!  Merciful and mighty.

God in three persons, blessed trinity.

I suppose I will have to wait until heaven to experience this again. 

As one ages, there seem to be increasing reasons to look forward to going there.

In the Rose Garden

In the rose garden,

Her pudgy baby hand,

Reaches for the blossom.

I hold her carefully,

Away from the thorns.

The blossom is delicate,

The fragrance intoxicating,

I want her to know them,

But I keep her,

Away from the thorns.

As long as I can,

I will shield and protect,

But someday my back will be turned,

Or she will walk away,

And reach for the thorns.

Know this, my precious child,

Prayers from my soul

Waft upward daily

As does the fragrance of the rose

Beyond the thorns.

I will try to pass to you,

The protecting shield

Use it yourself and pass it on

To tender hands and hearts

That may one day reach for thorns.

As I watch you grow and bloom,

I will fade like the rose petals,

But here is my wish for you…

May your future always hold,

More blossoms than thorns.