The Pillars

After the civil war, many communities set aside a special day for remembering those who had died in battle. Because the most common way to remember the dead was to take flowers to their graves, the day was originally called "Decoration Day." A national organization of Union Veterans participated in these memorials, by order of their Commander-In-Chief, John Logan. His General Orders No. 11 set aside May 30 as a day to "tenderly remember our heroic dead". He said in part, "If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us."

After World War I, the day was used to remember all Americans who had died in wartime. In 1971, Congress declared this "Memorial Day" to be a national holiday and moved its observance to the last Monday in May, in order to create a convenient three-day weekend.

On Memorial Day Service of 2009, Pastor Paine quoted from Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address, which dedicated a field to the memory of the soldiers who had died there. Ironically, the point of Lincoln's message was that the deeds of those men should be remembered far longer than the words that he spoke. Today, most people can quote Lincoln's speech from memory, or at least the "Four score and seven years ago" part. We remember the words because we've heard them rehearsed dozens of times. Like the children of Israel, without this "rehearsing in our ears", we soon forget even the great lessons of history. And like the children of Israel, we pay more attention to ceremony and observance of tradition than to the historical lessons they were created to preserve. For many people, Memorial Day is a day for picnics, just as Christmas is a day for presents and Easter is a day for baskets of candy. But I encourage you, as John Logan did, to keep the solemn trust, though others eyes grow dull and other hands slack. This memorial day, I took out time to study some history about the civil war. I put it in my heart and made it personal. I'll probably share what I learned with many of you. That's how I intend to keep the memory alive. I hope that each of you take out time to look beyond the ceremony and observance of tradition. I encourage you to make it personal; make it powerful. Remembering the past is not something that comes naturally; it takes diligent effort.