The Meaning of Memorial Day

It’s amazing to me how I am hearing and seeing so many thank our military for their service to our nation. I find it wonderful and humbling. Memorial Day is a three or four day weekend to almost everyone. They BBQ, they drink, laugh, and have a great time. It’s the unofficial start to the summer season, and life doesn’t seem to get much better. I typically will not BBQ on Memorial Day because almost every year that I lived in VA, it would rain and I would be annoyed. I did the drinking though and it was fun.


This year is different, not just because my husband is gone, but the political tone in our country is one of strong division, disdain, and an almost hatred of someone that doesn’t believe “your” way. We are unbelievably polarized and there appears to be no compromise on our horizon as a nation. The men and woman that lost their lives for Memorial Day would be deeply saddened by this division.


“Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.”( http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html )


Now only in the South could they not let the “war of the Northern Aggression” go, but that’s fine. Flowers on the graves that lost their life to the bloodiest war in American history, how awe inspiring. It was a war that had deep political divides, passions and beliefs. I do not see our nation heading toward the field of battle against each other like with the Civil War, but I do believe that our battlefield is out there, it’s just different.


As we reflect on those that made the ultimate sacrifice for this nation, a President’s words are playing a game in my mind. Those words are serving as my inspiration.


“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.


"A house divided against itself cannot stand."


I believe this government cannot endure; permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” (Abraham Lincoln, House Divided Speech, 1858)


A house divided against itself cannot stand? What does that mean today? It’s clear that in this beginning of Lincoln’s speech that he is railing against the division of the nation and slavery. It (the nation) must make a choice. We must either give up slavery to be one nation, or not to be one nation. We cannot have both. America could not be a nation that could have its cake and eat it too. Are we there today? Are we a house divided? I believe we are headed down that path. We are so divided that I personally can barely tolerate being friends with any more uptight Republicans or the religious right. Lincoln’s address, in my opinion, was the basis of his presidency. He never believed that the Southern states seceded from the Union. It is the line, “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved…” that amazes me. Our Union will never dissolve as it did 150 years ago. But what will? What will be sacrificed, or lost because we cannot accept the differences in each other?


As I read over Lincoln’s first inaugural address, I dumbstruck by the last line, the passionate plea for the Union. He did not believe that secession was possible since our Constitution had formed a “more perfect Union.” Lincoln also believed that before more bloodshed, that our nation could come together again and end the impending war that lasted five years and took many lives.


"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln's_first_inaugural_address)


As our nation marched headstrong into war, our families were divided, friendships lost, but the greatest sacrifice was that of the people. Americans killing Americans. Brother against brother. Such loss…such great loss…and for what? For a belief? For a passion? If you ask anyone why the Civil War was fought, two answers can be and are given; slavery and states’ rights. Are we there again? Are we so impassioned that as a nation, so full of rage, judgment, hatred, that we the people are going to fight again?


“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.


Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.


But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address)


A nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom…a new birth of freedom; I actually start to tear up when I read this line. A government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not parish from the earth. That is why we fight; that our government will not parish from the earth. Isn’t it time that we put aside our petty differences, come together as a nation and realize that we must all sacrifice. That a “new birth of freedom” is possible by listening, to each other? What happened to the tolerant nation I was born into? I do not see that nation before me now. I see one spews forth hatred to its fellow citizens like a dragon breathing fire. We are becoming a “house divided” and if it continues, we will not stand; we will fall and we will fail.


Why do we celebrate Memorial Day? We honor the memory of those that have given their life so that our government, our belief will not parish from the earth.


“I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” (Abraham Lincoln, The Bixby Letter)


As we celebrate, what I have called many times before, the BBQ holiday, please remember to think of those that have “ laid so costly a sacrifice upon the alter of freedom.” Think about families that will not be celebrating, but remembering those they have loved and lost. Pray for our military that are still on the field of battle, and mourning the loss of their friends.