Memorial stones

We begin the service with a loud gong. Then, a trumpet in the balcony pierces the silence and a flugelhorn answers from the platform. The guitars kick in with the drums and we’re off and running.

One song down, the organist picks up America the Beautiful and the old vets come in from the back, carrying flags. Year by year they come on Memorial Sunday, each year a few less than the year before. One woman is in a wheel chair this time. I note that Brad is shepherding them in, still young and erect in his Navy dress uniform. They march forward and slowly place flags on the platform. Brad steps up and leads the pledge.

Later, the familiar bars of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” lift from the organ and we repeat a tradition. Each verse is designated for a different branch of the military and those who have served in the past are invited to come forward.

The navy leads out on “whose arm doth still the restless wave.” Men begin to move down the aisles, some with vigor, and others moving very slowly. I see old Jack off to the left, cautiously making his way, hand over pew, hand over pew.

Next the Army and Marines come forward on “hill and plain.” There’s Roger coming from the back. His dad was an WWII army man who left his heart in Japan. After college in the US, he packed his wife and kids back to Japan for several decades where he helped rebuild the youth of a broken country. Roger, an army cook, also cooks a mean Japanese dinner.

When the air force hear “the eagles flight” several women join the group up front. Don and Dottie, who met in the air force, come in from the far right. Debbie slips out of the seat next to us, trim and young in her crisp uniform. Unlike most of the vets, she and Brad still fit in theirs.

On “danger’s hour” the police, firefighters, EMT and other local services are honored. By this time there are probably 50 men and women stretched across the front. The standing ovation lasts several minutes.

As they break ranks to head back, I see Brad take his father’s arm. Chet is 91 now, and Brad gently guides him back to his pew and delivers him to Irene. Brad slips into his space across the aisle where his kids greet him with glowing faces. Local hero, at least in pew 27.

John takes the platform and speaks of memorial stones from Joshua 4. “Why do we put up stones for memorials? Why do we bother to remember? Why do we need to look back as we move forward?”

He reminds us that the people in Joshua 4 who cross the Jordan and place stones for their children, are the children who crossed the Red Sea before they were twenty. Their parents forgot the significance of their past and didn’t get to move forward. They get another chance to choose for themselves. It is a choice to let the significant sacrifice of the past mold our future. We can chose to remember and set up stones.

Or we can let it go. Our choice. Our consequence.