Death, Dirt, and Granite

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      I have heard of families having to walk up spooky hollers, down overgrown valleys and up into the thickets on the Saturday before Easter. They carry picks, slings, shovels, hoes, steel toothed rakes, jugs of water and little flower sets. Usually they all walk together, as one family, saying little, yet trudging along with purpose. When they reach their destination, they spend the first few minutes orienting themselves as to where everything is and how everything should appear. The first steps are to look for fallen stones and to erect them again. The second step is to locate every grave and mark it in some way. The final and most involved step, and the longest, involves the slinging of tools, the thrashing of weeds and the jerk removal of saplings, vines, and poison ivy, being careful to avoid the yellow jackets nests.
      Usually the men sling tools, the women orchestrate and make piles of refuse vegetation, the children drag the piles out of sight and into the bramble. Finally, when the sling-cutting and rake-dragging are near completion, the young girls and women go from site to site placing little sets of flowers on each grave and carefully watering each set.
      Once again the family plot has been recovered from the wilds of this world. Once again the honor and dignity of our forebears has been reclaimed. Again, the stories of who was buried here and how this one died and who said what and who did this is told to a new generation. This new generation can then believe and know that dark death and the cold ground cannot prevent a deceased relative from being known…and loved.
      I have heard of other (perhaps more decent) people spending the Saturday before Easter cooking an Easter ham, boiling eggs to devil, chopping slaw, mixing yeast with flour and letting the warm kitchen air soften cream cheese for an icing concoction. I have heard of old picture albums being brought out with creaking bindings and musty and dusty aromas. Like so many others who have slowly turned these pages of a family’s visual history, I have seen endless pictures of nameless people who look like the people I live with.
      We have heard the names, some the same as our own, variously being ascribed to a tall lanky man with a funny hat; to a proud woman with a well armed pocketbook as she stands in front of her azalea bush that is fully blooming in black and white. Then there is a photo of a small child who through the pages grows to full maturity and is later seen in the album with gray hair, stooped shoulders, and holding a small baby and you realize that this small baby is you. Then there is another infantile picture of you placed in a pose on a funny overstuffed couch which you have never seen and on a day you cannot remember.
      All too often, the guide through this dried out book has to stop and ask themselves who a certain person is, only to suddenly laugh and say, “O, that’s Uncle so and so,” or “Well, that’s Aunt whatchamajig!” Too often, the guide has to stop and wipe away a little tear, for their heart has drawn too close to the picture. The guide has fortunately, but mistakenly heard a distant voice, smelled an old ancient smell or remembered a caring touch. Once again, the family story has been told to a new generation who will understand and believe that even the fabricated celluloid and dusty dry pages of an old picture album cannot prevent a deceased relative from being known…and loved.
      I have heard of people who rise early on Easter morning and dress in dark silence to take a short trip to a graveyard where they meet other people who have followed and kept the same ritual. In the darkness, those who are gathered talk quietly as the night stars are casually overtaken by a glowing eastern sky. Their feet become wet from dew, their noses are moist and chilled, and they stand with their arms crossed, each in their own way remembering other visits to various locations in the cemetery on other days when the turf had been disturbed and dark holes awaited priceless family members. These visitors have not come in the vain hope that they will find their living relatives. They have come to claim the unending hymn of faith that “Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.” They stand on holy ground, family ground, God’s ground, on God’s terms, and in the hope of a Risen Savior.
      Once again, on one morning of this year, we gather in the belief that not even death, dirt and granite shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Once again, we humbly receive the sacred hope of salvation. Again we remember that God is the Lord of life and death, and that to God we always remain in a firm grip and warm embrace.
      Our Easter faith is the predawn, affirmed belief in a God who knows us and holds everyone that we count precious when they fall.

Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com