Views from the Edge has been silent for awhile. Given my state of mind, it probably should stay quiet longer. But Memorial Day gives the dumb a hook on which to hang some of what’s been banging around my weary head.
Flags are everywhere today. American flags. They decorate the graves of the fallen in our national cemeteries and wave in front yards across America. But things are different this year.
While driving to the cabin by the wetland here in Minnesota, I see a different flag — a blue one with the name of the current president — waving from a homeowner’s flagpole where the red, white, and blue stars-and-stripes rippled stood before 2017. The dead we honor on Memorial Day didn’t die for this substitution. They fought against it.
The dead are unable to see the American flags posted at their graves or hear the sobering “Taps” that honors their sacrifice. Nor can they see the other flag that has taken its place on the flag pole where Old Glory once waved on Memorial Day. They didn’t die for this.
Like the dead, Memorial Day 2018 leaves me speechless.
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, May 28 (Memorial Day), 2018.
Views from the Edge 
Thank you Gordon.
❤
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You’re most welcome.
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No, really, they didn’t.
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Hi, Marilyn (Garry, too) – thanks. All the best.
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The Sojourners prayer for this day seemed apt for this post.
Lord, you promise a peace that passes all understanding. On this day, as we remember those who have died in war and because of it, give us peace in the knowledge that you desire all things to be made new, all lives to be made whole, and all hearts to be at peace with each other and you.
Another paraphrase from Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede:
There was a crown of thorns in marble circling the word PAX. Not the world’s peace, his peace. That line made me think a lot when I first read it, and I still find it worthy of consideration.
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Carolyn, I didn’t know of either before reading your comment. Thank you.
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Somehow messed up my WordPress account…. That that so called flag is flying, speaks to ignorance… Scary.
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Thank you, Gordon. I have missed your clear expression of your thoughts.
They announced this morning that the Memorial USS Arizona would be closed to tourists for much needed repairs. Maybe we could stop the government from any new actions until the damage of the past 16 months might be repaired. It was and remains just a product of random and muddled thought.
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Thanks for the random thought, Jim. Keep the kite flying!
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Good to hear your voice again with words for all of us.
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I’m returning to self-imposed silence, except perhaps for quotes from Emerson’s Nature and Experience essays. I can’t stand the shouting. Even though I agree with some of the voices, the words sound like the rants inside my head. The Book of Common Prayer and the Psalms say most of what needs to be said, and what they have to say is not in reaction to today’s events. Only with distance from the malaise can one see close up more clearly. The wider lens doesn’t give me hope so much as it does perspective and room to be be still and hear the whisper.
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