Ten Thousand Graves

Ten thousand graves

Normandy

Ten thousand graves ... 

Tended with care ... lush grass precisely trimmed.

Crosses mostly ... and Stars of David ...

Young men and women cut down in the prime of life.

They were brave and they were afraid ...

Their pictures reveal that haunted look ...

Of soldiers too tired to be afraid, 

And too frightened to find sleep.

Seasick and wet, 

They hit the beach …

Under the cover of …

Steel and smoke.

Death and tears abound …

Ahead, my friends, ahead.

There’s no going back now.

No stopping for any of us.

A continent enslaved awaits the charge.

Nations, yes, and then some, to be unshackled …

And the years pass us by quickly …

Memories roll beyond the reach of words …

Silent tears still shed …

By those who made it home.

Slowly, now, they join their comrades,

As we all do … with the passage of time.

Hand-in-hand; arm-in-arm … a band of brothers …

A chorus of sisters …

Smoke and steel … 

And a victory in hand.

And may those 

Ten thousand graves remain ever well-tended!

© Tom Eggebeen, 2010

Strolling among those graves, on a bright, sunny, Normandy day, we each paused from time-to-time by a grave, for no other reason than our feet stopped moving … and we’d read the name, the dates … I set out to find the date of my birthday, July 7, 1944 … I found two graves - two soldiers who died, and who knows how, while a squalling baby Eggebeen entered this too often sordid world, in the early morning, it was, Sheboygan, WI, Memorial Hospital, on the north side of town, on the shores of Lake Michigan. I remember standing by those two graves in Normandy, and I kept saying “thank you.”

I didn’t have any choice to be born - that’s how it is for us - either by design, or by chance, we’re conceived, and if things work out, we make it nine months in our mother’s womb.

And those soldiers, too, they were born like most are, in the hopes and joys of a family … and they went to school and had big dreams, and played cops and robbers and then dated, and found love, and maybe lost it … and then a war … and however it was, those bright and eager lives were abruptly ended, too soon ended, and families received the news they all dreaded to receive, and they wept … the remains of a loved one, now, to remain in
Europe, where they fell … and life goes on, sort of, but something missing, always … death does that to a family, to towns all across America … the missing ones, buried across the sea … 

Do the buried ones have a voice?

Perhaps they do … a singular voice, a quiet voice, from the grave - “Why?” Their question, if they have one, to us … who yet live. “Why?”

The eleventh month, the eleventh day, at eleven o’clock in the morning, the Armistice was signed … to end the war that was so horrible and violent, folks thought it might be the “war to end all wars” … 

We do well today to honor the dead … and to hear their quiet voice, with their quiet question, “Why?”

We are a warring species … for good reasons, and for lousy reasons, we kill one another … if not with the tools of war, then with words … and a host of other devices so cleverly woven in our behavior - of how we treat one another, the things we say, the glance that says it all, the flipped eyebrow, and so on and so forth.

On this good day, to search our souls … and pay attention to the gospel of our LORD Jesus Christ … that by the Spirit of mercy, and kindness, to quiet within ourselves, the darker thoughts that breed the stuff of harm.

And to pray for our nation and its leaders, that the darker materials of violence and death would be better managed by faith, hope and love.

On this day, Nov. 11 … God’s Peace, and Amen!

All We have to Fear is Freedom

As best as I can tell, evangelicals fear freedom:

Their opposition to abortion is less a care for the fetus than a fear of a woman's freedom to choose. They can't really say that, so they dress it all up in a pretended care for the unborn.

Their opposition to euthanasia is less a care for life than a fear of someone's freedom to choose.

Their support of the death penalty, a tit for tat response, requires no thought, and no care for justice, because justice demands thought, and thought requires freedom. The criminal violated the law, as they see it, and while that's true, the evangelical is content to see the death penalty as th final elimination of freedom - theirs in the deliberative process and that of the criminal.

Their labeling of climate change as a hoax is less a regard for truth, or God's purposes, or whatever, as it is a fear of responsibility, which is an element of freedom.

Their love of the military stems from their fear of the other's freedom, and the need to build a wall against the other's freedom, whether that freedom be a mother and a child crossing the border or Iran building its own nuclear weapons. The evangelical cannot allow that kind of freedom, so they join the military and learn how to kill freedom for others, even as they salute and march in lockstep with one another, having long ago surrendered their freedom to half-wit preachers, narcissistic politicians and their "almighty" gawd.

Their approval of fascism is linked to their need for order, complete order, an order that no longer needs thinking, because thinking requires freedom, the freedom to consider choices and options, and that's deeply disturbing to the evangelical mind. There is only one way to interpret the Bible, only one way to worship, only one way to live. In that kind of mindset, freedom is a bother, a threat.

Their need for a "sovereign" god who approves of rape is driven by their fear of freedom ... there has to be plan for all of this suffering, so rather than challenging the nature of suffering, which requires their responsibility, and likely requires regard for the woman/girl and her life, and her right to choose, they lay it all at the feet of god, walk away, as Pilate did, washing their hands of responsibility, care, concern and love, and then sanctimoniously tell the girl that her pregnancy is of god, and she darn well better carry that fetus to term.

And with that, not even their god has any more freedom. And without freedom, there is no love; only rules and regulations, guns and violence, enforced by fear, the fear of freedom.

We Are Cursing Our Children

Psalm 147.13 - "God blesses your children...."

This hit me hard today.

That children become the measure of God's blessing, mercy, protection and wellbeing. How the children are doing says a whole lot about God, for sure, but even more about us, and our faithfulness to God's purposes.

Yet, it would seem that are children are cursed, rather than blessed. Not that God is doing the cursing, but rather we are, with a proud determination, it would seem, to have it our way, no matter the "collateral damage" [read: dead children].

We have violated so many of God's purposes and plans ... we have refused to heed the cries of our children, blaming them, blaming their parents, blaming everything and everyone we can, even the "act of god," for the tragedies that befall our children day upon day.

That such should happen in so many parts of the world, desperate and war-torn, only adds to our guilt - for we loudly proclaim our godliness, our great American abilities, our strength, our prowess ... we're all about greatness, or so we say.

And, yet, our children suffer ... in our cities racked with poverty, our rural areas stricken with joblessness and opioids; across the land and throughout our nation, the children of America are dying for want of nutrition, safety and by untold violence everywhere.

Not even God can undo the horrendous decisions we make to satisfy our twisted desires to own a gun ... to have power ... to be able to threaten others ... to be tough and mean ... and live as we please ... looking to the rich to help us along the way, even as the rich continue to steal every dime they can from education, healthcare and the nation's safety nets, cleverly playing upon our fears so that we'll buy even more guns and continue our violent ways.

Not even God can bless the children when we're working overtime, it would seem, to curse them.

Even God Has to Learn

Every time God used violence to force God's purpose,
It failed.

From the flood to the conquest.
Blood begets blood.

And of the flood,
God said, "Never again!"

Even God has to learn the
Basic Stuff.