Remember...

        Two days ago was Independence day. Some people go to the beach on that day, some host a barbecue party. Some set off an abundance of fire crackers. Some use it as an excuse for large family gatherings.

     I went to a cemetery.

     It wasn't a historic one with any auspicious monuments either. Simply an average run-of-the-mill cemetery which I reached by trekking through a school parking lot and a tobacco field.

        This might have been more appropriate on memorial day, but I suppose that, as much as I wanted to rejoice with everyone else in the founding of our country, I wanted to remember those who had died to keep our country the way it was made to be. Yes, even in the little Rolesville Cemetery, fallen soldiers are laid to rest. Inscriptions such as, "He died so that others would live free," "He served his country," or "A life of sacrifice" engrave simple, stone plaques decorated only with a single American flag.

         To keep a country free in a turbulent world like ours, lives will continue to be offered. And in this day and age, people so quickly minimize that sacrifice.

   I hear it all the time. You probably do too.

      It was just a wasted life.
  
     War is always in vain because there's always another one.

     Better to just give in than so many people die. 

     "War, what is it good for? .... Absolutely nothing!"

You see, I'd like to propose that war is not useless. Horrible, to be sure, but necessary, nonetheless. I'd like to propose that it is better to die than to allow evil men to commit mass genocide or squash multitudes of helpless people under a malevolent thumb.

     That's what I like about being an American. Americans have always, on the whole, understood the importance of personal freedom, even if this days it's been taken to a rather irrational individualistic fervor. Americans, for the most part, still fiercely believe in an individual's right to think, act and live the way he chooses, so far as it does not encroach on another individual's right to the same. People are sinful, of course, which is why, even here, we still have abortion, mass shootings, and theft which blatantly deny those rights.

      Yet through it all, the American spirit has survived to be known as independent and fiercely free. For that I am grateful, which is why I found myself in a cemetery on the fourth of July.

      I visited the grave of an old friend who greeted us with a delightful pound-cake when we first moved into the neighborhood eleven years ago. I read the beautiful inscriptions on many of the gravestones; the hopeful Bible verses, carved into the awful beauty of the granite markers. I brushed away grass from the departed veteran's flat stones and wept for the passing of those formerly and recently who had moved on either into a lovelier life or a darker death. I thanked God for those passed on who had formed, founded, and fallen for Rolesville, as Americans have done for cities and towns all over this vast country.

     It matters to me that I remember those in this little town on this auspicious American holiday because as G.K. Chesterton so eloquently reminds us,
        "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." 

     It comes down to this: the soldiers from Boston died because they loved Boston, the general from Richmond fought and died because he loved Richmond. The Lieutenant from Lexington and the Colonel from Concord fell fighting in the revolutionary war because they cared about Concord and Lexington, and the soldiers from Rolesville who even now fall on the battlefield, die, I'd like to think, because they love Rolesville.


      Let's not minimize their sacrifice by saying it was in vain, or war is stupid. Let's take our national holidays as moments of quiet to remember and be grateful. Any opportunity we have, and freedom we posses access to, came as a result of people dying, and such a reality we should never forget or allow to cool within our hearts.

       *bows*

And that, ladies and Gentlemen is my speech for the fourth of July. Go forth and fight for what's right, and honor those who died for it.

     I shall leave you with a piece by one of my most favorite composers, a most brilliant man who wrote some of his most magnificent music out of an inspiration by America.

     Yes, you know the name, the only Czech composer of monumental significance(sorry Smetana) Antonin Dvorak!

     In honor of this patriotic time of the year, I shall delight you with his American String Quartet. It's so beautiful, it really is, you will hear me whistling snatches of it around town, or playing bits on my violin when I'm bored....did I mention that Dvorak was brilliant?

    Yes, I'm quite aware that it is 25 minutes long. May I humbly suggest that you leave this tab open while you work on some writing or some boring accounting and allow this lovely piece to relieve some of the monotony or inspire to write better? Or, better yet, close the door, fling a cloth over the mirror(very important!), turn up the volume and invent your own dance to the music. This is not your typical pop song. You will not be doing the same movement over and over again to a mind-numbing beat, you'll be so engrossed that you will spend twenty-five minutes exercising without even realizing it because it was so enjoyable! :)

     Okay, okay, fine, I know none of you are the Classical music fanatic I am, however, do listen to it!


  Happy Independence Day!

      Until I write again; Remember!

       ~ Christianna