DELIBERATE CONTEMPLATION
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Deuteronomy
32:7 Remember the days of
old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show
you; your elders, and they will tell you.
Deliberate
contemplation does not come natural to me. I must work at the discipline.
Yesterday, Memorial Day, I purposely invested time and effort in the worthwhile
training. My main goal being to hear and contemplate “Your story?” if willing
to share. Most encountered were agreeable as it was that kind of day.
Forest Lawn
Cemetery outdoor memorial service at 10am turned out to require work focusing
on the stated theme as it was a somewhat organized ceremony. The individual
before and after conversations were edifying.
Passing Potter’s
Field on my drive home I was impeded
by 12 neatly uniformed men dismounting vehicles and motorcycles. They quickly
formed up, sharply marched thru the small gate. On command they fired a 21 gun
salute. On command they pivoted left and marched back to their cars, but not
without thanking me for joining in their respect. Their respect exercised every
Memorial Day at a number of locations, most of them sans participants, spectators,
TV cameras with commentators as had been earlier up the hill beyond the copse of
brushy trees.
As I slowly
walked the 5.5 acres containing 1,663 paupers, 1,180 of them under 2 years of
age, 483 of which were stillborn, all interred in a place with only a half
dozen or so markers, most of them illegible or not-engraved crumbling concrete
. . . without effort I was focused.
A bit later my
granddaughter and greatgrandson accompanied me to Two Rivers State Park. There
I chatted with family, friends, and yet more strangers.
Driving home
alone, as planned I stopped at the remote but well kept Elk City Cemetery. (As
with a number of pioneer dreams, Elk City was a city-to-be that wasn’t.) There
becoming engaged with the only 2 others visiting. Kelli, while pregnant,
abandoned by irresponsible “Want to do my own thing.” The daughter Shaylee, 3,
a delightfully precocious Shirley Temple “I know things.” type. They soon to
move far west were there in respect for Lawrence, USNavy veteran, an older man
that supported them thru the difficult times.
Other than the
occasional rumble on the adjacent gravel road, it was quiet while viewing and
wondering about pioneers, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam veterans, others,
to one quite recent grassless grave.
And how was your
day of remembrance?
EBB4
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