Faith Works 5-26-18
Jeff Gill
Memorials across the landscape
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This weekend marks the 150th anniversary of the formal establishment of Memorial Day.
It was begun by General John Logan of Illinois, in his role as head of the nation's largest veteran's organization following the Civil War, the Grand Army of the Republic. He put out "General Order No. 11" on May 5, 1868, asking that all the posts and communities where the GAR was active mark May 30, 1868 as a day to decorate the graves of those who had died in "the late conflict."
Terms like "the Civil War" or even "Memorial Day" were not yet set in stone; this weekend only became a federal holiday in 1971, one of the controversial "Monday holidays" established that year. May 30 had been a state holiday in many places all across the United States, more to the North and former Union bastions than in the South.
But the roots of Memorial Day go deep, and even into places like Richmond, Virginia. Waterloo, New York is given credit for the first formal ceremony of commemoration to decorate graves and set up memorials in the month of May, starting in 1866; many places had a sort of "Decoration Day" well before the 1860s, a community affair to pull the early spring weeds, plant flowers after the last frost, and generally commune with the dead.
"Decoration Day" was the first capital-D name of what Gen. Logan and the GAR started, but Memorial Day it became as World War I and II added their burdens to our roster of the fallen. And in places like Granville, they are thankful they can record a Memorial Day observance by the community in unbroken sequence from the official 1868 beginning.
Memorial Day is a solemn observance that focuses on sacrifice, and those who gave "the last full measure of devotion." Veterans Day grew out of World War I's "Armistice Day" on November 11, to salute all who served, but this occasion focuses on the dead, and our intention to honor them with our remembrance, and a renewed devotion to work as communities and as a nation to create a world where such sacrifices must no longer be asked.
I'll be in a well-tended cemetery on Monday, and I honor our Veterans Alliance and today's American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars and Vietnam Veterans of America and others who will briskly cover the county, from nearly sunrise to the noontime conclusion of these observances. Even some of our smallest and today least used or visited cemeteries will have an honor guard, a salute, a prayer. Wherever you can go in your area, and stand silently, offering your presence, know that the family and friends of those killed in action appreciate beyond measure all who take the time to be present, and to share in their sorrow.
When I ministered in West Virginia, there were in my county a couple of Revolutionary War era markers out in now fallow fields, where settlers fell in raids during the 1770s, or where a frontier outpost once stood and nearby, soldiers were buried in unmarked graves. Each year, because of the example my dad set for me in remembering and marking Memorial Day, I'd get some flowers and go out and mark these 1777 & 1778 decaying monuments.
One year, I parked by car by the road and picked my way through the stubble of the field, wondering if it would be plowed this year as it had not the last few. I crested the rise, and came to the marker, about head high with a bronze plaque dating back almost a hundred years itself . . . and at its foot, a bouquet of fresh flowers. No card, no note, but I didn't add one when I placed mine, either. I had no idea who had gotten this same idea, and made the effort to make visible their remembrance.
But I know this: I felt much less alone in that field. And to that person, who I pray still takes some flowers this weekend to that spot now many hours away from where I'll be praying with hundreds, I offer my thanks for how we can come together to make a memorial in our hearts, the kind that God promises to preserve forever.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he will be offering prayers at 11 am in Maple Grove Cemetery in Granville for their 150th Memorial Day. Tell him where you will be for Memorial Day at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
