“Decorating graves and Graduation a strange dichotomy”
06-07-2007

Column 904, May 30, 2007

“Provoking Christian Insights” series



Part 4



“Decorating graves and Graduation a strange dichotomy”

Decoration day was always special at our house. My wife said that she remembers decorating her bicycle for the New Washington Decoration Day Parade and that was a big and memorable deal. I remember going downtown to be a part of the parade, either watching or in it as a Cub, then Boy Scout. I feared marching to the cemetery a mile away would kill me.



Those parades were big and our hearts were heavy for the “boys” who were killed in action. I remember sitting under a tree talking about a soldier whose “parachute” didn’t open, if he asked God to save him on the way down, would he go to heaven?



There was the cemetery itself. Sort of a foreboding place grandma called “the bone-yard.” It was sort of scary. Some graves were above the ground, others “six feet under,” so you couldn’t “smell” anything. We had all heard the “ashes to ashes” part and were told we were made of dust and to dust we would return. That Jesus, at the sound of the “Trumpet” would come, and we would all come out of our graves, those of us who believed, and fly up to meet him in the sky.



Of course we remember the neighbor who was burned up in the barn fire, and the men lost at sea. Would they fly up too? These same questions would go through my mind as I stood waiting for the prayer and General Logan’s Order number 40 to be read, by a high school senior, at the memorial service. There were 16,000 people in the graveyard, more than the population of the town and all buried since 1830. I wonder how many were saved?



Most of the people mom would take me to see at the funeral home were old. That was until Freddy Myers, a year younger than me, was killed while on vacation in an auto crash. I looked in the casket to see Freddy made up to cover the marks of the wreck. Freddy was in my Cub Scout troop. I don’t think he was “confirmed” but I hoped he was “saved.”



As the years went by I would know the countenance under almost every tombstone I passed by. Some I thought might not be doing any “flying up to meet the Lord” on that day, in fact quite a few. Then I thought of the guy falling out of the plane. Would God honor deathbed confessions of faith? Some pastors said “Yes” and some said “maybe not.” It a great big God we serve. I pray he would forgive those who didn’t attend church regularly, and the ones who spent more in the barbershop than they put in the offering tray.

Wait a minute … that’s judgmental, but the point is made.



I remember Jesus talking about the forgiveness of sin saying, “I will remember it no more.” I wish I could do the same. My friend and skating instructor “Bob” was buried yesterday. The mound of fresh dirt lies above him 54 inches below (they don’t do six feet anymore), He died driving his beloved Lincoln throwing his hands up in the air. His wife knocked the car into neutral and his son jumped out of the back seat into the front and stopped the car. It took longer than six minutes to get to the hospital and Robert’s mind was gone. He soon died. Did he have time to make peace with his maker or had he already accepted Jesus as Savior? I suspect the later.



The point is that when you die its over. Everything leading up to salvation has passed.



Two days later we go to a Graduation and we witness young life ready and going out into the world and talk is of starting out on the road of life with the whole world ahead of you. Bright expectation builds as you walk up to receive your diploma (when I got mine, Rev. Pat, said “I ought to drop this on the floor so you’ll have to pick it up,” laughingly. There was a message in that I never forgot). After graduation I went out in the old playground and sat in a swing thinking about growing up and what tomorrow would bring.



My thoughts went over to that old graveyard. Someday I’ll be out there moldering with everyone else, I thought. What would I do in-between? I remembered the lyrics of an old song, “Would I be famous, what would I be? Que Sera, Sera.” No matter what I would do my heart would belong to Jesus. Thank you Mrs. Elder, thank you First Baptist (the church where I was baptized on Easter 1949). Even though I would backslide, a little, scratch that, a whole bunch, Jesus would remember it no more.



After his 25th birthday, my son would graduate Ohio State. He was ready for the world. He and many of his class spent most of the first year after graduation trying to find a good, well paying job. Adam found one with Maytag, but lost it in the by out by Whirlpool. He found another. Both jobs were a long way from home. He’s doing pretty well but he is over six hours away. He told me, “Dad, I want to come home and maybe get a job at the YMCA.” I just want to be home.



He would give up a job paying five to six times as much to come teach little kids how to play basketball. But I know his heart. He studied to conquer the business world, but in his heart he wants to teach, and live near his family and friends (even though most of them will be going “away” to find work). Then I remember the old Germans who raised their families and when that came ‘to their majority’ added on to the house, or lived nearby. There is something about living in community and loving one another that is just life fulfilling. Every job I ever had was within three blocks of where I lived. I guess we can’t do that today.



Sure, some will leave their mother and father and go, just like missionaries, out into the world and be happy wherever they go. “Bob” was buried in Bucyrus dirt, not the Akron dirt he grew up in. The Bible says “only what’s done for God will last.” Therein lies a message for the people in the cemetery and for the young graduate. When all is said and done, only what is done for God will last forever. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, the end result is your forever.



May God richly bless you as you go through the trials of life.



INSPIRATION: “The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me by the still waters, he restores my soul. He leads me in the pats of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For You are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, You anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, (Psalm 23).


Write: croneis@earthlink.net