Straight From The Hart

  The lyrics of an old gospel song kept running through my mind this week.  “Memory is one gift from God that death cannot destroy.”  On this weekend when the topics of both death and memory are so prominent in our minds, it seems appropriate that we have such a reminder - first of all that memory is indeed a gift from God, and secondly that while death cannot destroy it, there are other things that can temporarily cause its loss. The dreaded and dreadful condition we call Alzheimer’s disease robs our loved ones of their most precious memories. The secularization of our society is an even worse threat to the memories woven into the fabric of our nation because it could be prevented, and yet we as a people allow it to continue year after year. And then there is neglect, perhaps the most insidious pathway we can take that will lead us as a nation into a time of great memory loss as it pertains to our values and our morals.  I use the word  “insidious” because it m...

Monday will be Memorial Day.  The mere mention  of the holiday generates swirls of memories in my mind.  Our observance of the day has probably undergone more changes in the seven decades I have lived than any other holiday we have throughout the year.  Tradition tells us it started as a way to honor the Civil War dead, but soon included all military graves, and now we decorate the graves of friends and family, too. Graves have been replaced by urns containing  ashes, and today many people have memorial services instead of funerals.  I’m not making a judgment with regard to that, just recognizing that once again things that were familiar to me so long ago are becoming more rare today,  like the fact that it is mostly the older generation who now decorates the graves. My Grandma Dame always called it Decoration Day.  That was back when we observed it on May 30, regardless of what day  of the week it fell on.   I  disli...