Cemetary Musings
There's just something about going to the cemetary when you're in a bad mood. You've been griping just moments before entering that your life is terrible, that you'd rather just drive off a cliff than deal with one more day. But then you enter the gates of the cemetary and you're confronted by the sight of hundreds of gravestones. Each with their own name, the name belonging to someone who was once in your place, living and loving amongst friends and family. And all of a sudden, your problems don't seem so bad anymore. As you see husbands and wives buried side by side, their gravestone proclaiming that they'll love each other forever, you begin to appreciate that special someone in your life. You see babies who never had a chance to grow up, teenagers taken from their friends, and more grandparents than you can count. And as you see the gravestones of people in their twenties, you begin to view your own life as a blessing. You begin to see the bigger picture, not just the problems of today. In the entire course of our lives, we will face dark days. But when all is said and done, that is not what is remembered. Whom did we love? Who loved us? Whose lives have we touched with Christ's love-- His actual, unconditional, grace-filled love?
Self-pity falls flat in the middle of a cemetary. We are blessed with life. The important question for me is, what am I going to do with it? I can invest in dark moments of self pity, drawing further from the ones I love... or I can embrace life and love.
I read an amazing poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. It's called "Forgiveness":
My heart was heavy,
For its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered
with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from
my fellowmen,
One summer Sabbath day
I strolled among
The green mounds of the
village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all
human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how,
soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer,
each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over
a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of
our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend,
whence none depart,
Awed for myself,
and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow
like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away,
and trembling,
I forgave!"
I think I finally understand what Whittier meant.
Self-pity falls flat in the middle of a cemetary. We are blessed with life. The important question for me is, what am I going to do with it? I can invest in dark moments of self pity, drawing further from the ones I love... or I can embrace life and love.
I read an amazing poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. It's called "Forgiveness":
My heart was heavy,
For its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered
with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from
my fellowmen,
One summer Sabbath day
I strolled among
The green mounds of the
village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all
human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how,
soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer,
each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over
a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of
our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend,
whence none depart,
Awed for myself,
and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow
like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away,
and trembling,
I forgave!"
I think I finally understand what Whittier meant.