Meandering in Graveyards

I have journeyed often to the nearby cemetery in these recent months of moving from deep grief to growing hope.  Today I took a longer journey to be with cousins who have grown old with me as they said good bye to a sister who had been a steadying rock in all of their lives.  The place where she was buried was just over from the graves of my grandparents and her parents.  If I had walked around those grounds for a few moments, I would have come to other stones which marked the graves of those connected to me through birth.    

It was sacred ground.  It was a ground that had been watered by tears of loss, ground that held the memories of stories never told, and ground that spoke to us all of belonging.  Just up the road a piece there is another graveyard much like the one in which I stood today.  It is filled with others who bear my name including my father who died before he had time to see his children grown with children of their own.  As often as I can, I go to that place and simply stand for a spell in the silence.  Cemeteries are places which bring us in touch with the deep memories we carry in our hearts, but they also are places where we are reminded of our hope and faith.  

When I stand there I remember the words the angels spoke to the grieving women on Resurrection Sunday, "He is not here; He is risen."  (Luke 24:5)  So it is with all of those whose graves I stood before today and yesterday.  There is no way to measure the loss we feel when we are separated in death from someone we love, but as the grief begins to loose its hold, we come to a place of seeing what we cannot see and we find gratitude rising up in us that the Risen Christ has prepared a glorious eternal home for those who have shaken the hold of a failing body.