graveyards and grace...

I love old graveyards, the ones with full grown trees and flowers and shrubs planted by loving hands long ago. The stones sometimes tilt towards Tildy and often the inscriptions are so worn they are difficult to decipher. Old graveyards can be found everywhere, in towns small and large, in the countryside, perched on the sides of mountains and hills, in church yards.
My favorite old graveyard is at Bruington Baptist Church in King and Queen County, Virginia. It was my mother’s family church. Founded in 1793, the old brick two story building stands in the shade of majestic huge oak trees circled with benches. Those trees were the site of dinner on the grounds until the new wing was built. The graveyard, like many of the old burial sites, is gathered in with an iron fence. It is well kept by the congregation and is expanding. Graves mark the lives of people who lived three hundred years ago and three months ago. Pastors who loved that old church are buried there next to those whom they served.
Mama and I drove down to Bruington after Uncle Tud’s funeral and stopped at the old church. As we walked through the graveyard, mama and I looked at the graves, read the inscriptions and remembered the ones we love who are buried there. So much of mama’s past, teachers, friends, family, rest in the warm earth surrounded by all their extended family.
The Minter family plot has the graves of my grandparents and a stone for a baby boy who died at birth. Uncle Bill and Aunt Thelma lie next to them. Great-grandmother and great-grandfather, cousins, great-aunts and great uncles... all gathered together in a family group with inscriptions on each stone. Hymn titles...There is a place of quiet rest near to the Heart of God... Asleep in Jesus... descriptions of lives well lived... dates of birth and death... relationships defined... beloved daughter... loving mother... faithful friend... memories of life entrusted to words written on stone.
To be remembered... this is the gift of old graveyards. When I walk through old graves reading the tombstones, I am remembering and wondering and giving thanks for the lives of those who lie buried there. Walking through a Jewish cemetery, I see all the little stones resting on the tombstones as visible markers of remembrance from those who have visited a particular grave. At Bruington I see flowers and shrubs growing that were planted by grieving families. In the mountains, folks gather at cemeteries and spend a day cleaning and remembering, Decoration Day. In my head I understand the practicality and ecology of cremation but my heart understands the comfort of earth burial, a place to visit and remember.
My Bible fell open to Second Samuel this morning, Chapter twenty three. “Now these are the last words of David: The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the annointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel.” Now there is a tombstone inscription that covers all the bases... relationship, work, connection to God, and my favorite phrase, “sweet psalmist of Israel.” Those words were written by someone who loved David. They loved him even though he was a flawed and cracked vessel, remembered him for all of his goodness, forgave and forgot his sins which were many. What a grace filled way to be remembered.
I hope I will be remembered with loving grace for all my life. I, like David, have sins a’plenty but they are not the sum of me, only a part. Perhaps I should begin living like I am dying with careful consideration of my tombstone inscription a part of my daily devotional time. Now there’s a different perspective... grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all my sin. Grace and remembrance... Peggy Calhoun Cole Hester