Grave Thoughts on the New Year
posted by on 01/3/09
I spent some time wandering through a graveyard today. It amazes me how walking through a graveyard can impact a person’s outlook on life.
My great great uncle Arthur Bland passed away on Tuesday and today was the funeral. Since he was a veteran of a foreign war, the burial ceremony was recognized with a three-gun salute, the folding of the flag, and a trumpeter playing the slow and haunting notes of Taps. Emotions welled up inside me and I could hardly keep back the tears.
Afterwards I meandered from tombstone to tombstone, reading the names, pondering the lifespans, and considering the lives of person after person. Each of these people had dreams, goals, and aspirations, just like me. Slowly the things that were really important in life came into focus as being really important. And the things that really weren’t so important didn’t look so important.
Here’s a good thought to keep in mind as I make my happy little New Year’s resolutions, "What am I doing now that is going to matter when my body is lying under a tombstone in a lonely country grave?"
Happy New Year!
It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart… The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Ecc 7:2,4
Our life is that little dash between the two numbers. It’s a really short dash because life is short and vanishes away. Good thoughts, Robert.
Sounds like your uncle lived a significant life. The relative shortness of life keeps young and old closer together.
The Lord’s been reminding me lately that my life is not to be saved, only “lost” in the right ways as time goes by. And believe it or not I read the following verses just this morning: “Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before Thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in Thee” (Psalm 39:4-7 [capitalization altered]).