May Our Remembrance Become Our Renewal – Part 4

Remarks made at the annual Celebration of Remembrance & Renewal of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Utah, James Lowe Chapter Rose Croix in the Valley of Salt Lake on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

There are four practices that will allow us to turn remembrance into renewal more often. Third: In every life there is some virtue, that is: something wise, strong, or beautiful; and we have to find it, and let it inspire us.

It is easy to learn from the lives of the great or famous, but there is something notable in every life. We often miss remarkable lessons in the life of lowly, or those with whom we have differences.

As Robertson Davies has wisely noted, “Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.”

We can even learn from people who lived long ago and we do not know.

Few people I know love to spend time wandering in Cemeteries as much as I do. I’m not drawn by any maudlin or morbid motive. I go to ponder and draw strength.

You can’t always learn a lot from a headstone – just a few particulars - but you can often learn a great deal from a series of headstones or memorials.

On one trip into Central Utah, I opened a flimsy wooden gate and entered a dilapidated cemetery that is the only hint that the town of Manassah even existed. The water-table is too high to support much other than wetlands, and the untended graves were sinking out of sight nearly 20-years ago when I visited.

There among the pioneer graves was a row that included the final resting places of a Scandinavian immigrant and his wife, marked only by small, humble rock headstones roughly 8x10 inches.

Next to this woman, one after another, were the graves of eight children born to the couple. Each had died shortly after birth!

I paused and ached as I felt the pain and suffering that both parents must have experienced after each birth, short life and early death. But had this been all, it would not have inspired me as it did.

In other parts of this neglected Cemetery, I easily recognized four other children of this afflicted couple. Three had married and had children of their own. One more had died as a young man fighting in the Utah Indian War.

Their strength and perseverance inspired me to weather my own personal trial, to be more stoic in the face of my own buffetings. I resolved right there not to suffer so pathetically and to exercise greater strength and persistence.

When we look at the lives of others, it is the good that inspires us. The sun rises again each morning, heralding a new day of promise and opportunity, but few find new growth in the bright sunshine unless they feel the warmth of enlightenment.

There are four practices that will allow us to turn remembrance into renewal more often. Tomorrow, the Fourth of these practices: The beneficiaries of any rebirth must be the living, especially those living most closely around us.