Every Memorial Day, my parents took flowers to decorate the graves of their parents. They didn’t talk about why; they just did it in a pretty matter-of-fact way. That tradition has stopped with my brother and me. It just doesn’t speak to us, I guess, or it’s too painful, or we’re too lazy. Hard to say…
So I was moved by a recent article in the Star Tribune (5/28/12) that told the story of the small Dutch town of Margraten, where, for nearly seven decades, villagers have cared for the graves of the eight thousand U.S. soldiers who are buried there, killed as the village was being liberated from retreating German forces who had “scorched a nightmare into the land,” in the words of the article. When the Americans arrived, adults and children dressed in their best to meet them, many of them weeping in gratitude and relief.
In 1948, the bodies buried there were exhumed and many repatriated to American soil. Those that remained rest in graves that are still lovingly tended. According to the article, “Unlike nearly 20 similar cemeteries across Europe, the 8,301 graves at the Netherlands American Military Cemetery and Memorial are not just white crosses. Each grave is adopted by a local family who bring flowers and attend memorial services. The baton passes as residents move or die.”
A single soldier’s grave is adopted and still tended by a Dutch family because of something that happened 70 years ago. A small plot of ground becomes the stage on which to express deep, enduring human gratitude.
We each have a plot of ground, a sphere of influence, a circle of power, a stage on which we act. That’s one reason I like to use this dismissal at the end of church services:
Let us go forth into the world and know that there are words of hope and healing that will never be spoken unless you speak them, and deeds of compassion and courage that will never be done unless you do them.
The power to speak, to act, or to tend a grave as an expression of gratitude can seem like a burden (as my brother and I now regard the family tradition around Memorial Day), but we can ask for help in being more generous people, less the victims of our reticence and self-centeredness, and more forthcoming with our kindness and love. Franciscan Richard Rohr writes this:
“The day of Pentecost frees the apostles to believe in a God who is actively involved in their lives and no longer a mere intellectual belief. The Holy Spirit has become wind, fire, joy, excitement, universal shareability and not just another boring Sabbath obligation or more commandments to obey…. The Holy Spirit is experienced as the power to love beyond boundaries and ethnicities.”
God calls us to tend our plot of ground on God’s behalf. No one else can do what we can, where we are, at a given moment. We have power and a sphere of influence that is ours alone. And we have help.
Barbara
Pictured above: PVT Harry J. Lindemann’s grave, Memorial Day 2008, Margraten, Holland
