Gravely Grateful

I spent some time in a cemetery the other day. I don’t usually go to cemeteries alone; when I do go I’m usually carrying a Bible and some funeral notes, and I’m walking silently behind a casket toward a gravesite. I’m either in prayer for the family who walks behind me, or sometimes, wondering whether I remembered to turn my cellphone to vibrate. Once I didn’t— and it came back to haunt me mid-service. No pun intended.

There are a few cemeteries I used to visit often—where friends, family or church-members are buried. But the other day I had 20 minutes before an appointment, and a cemetery just happened to be nearby. So I drove through the gate, parked the car under a big old tree, and started to walk around.

As I walked, I began thinking about Memorial Day coming up this Monday—remembering my relatives who’d been in the armed forces, and praying for the former youth group kids I led who joined the Marines, and for the sons and daughters of Kaw Prairiers who are in harm’s way now.

As I walked, I realized that I like Memorial Day a lot. Partially because I admire sacrifice. And partially because I believe in gratitude.

And a cemetery is great place to be grateful.

Years ago, when we lived in the Chicago area, I used to spend a lot of time at Dennis Bloomquist’s grave on warm summer & blustery fall days. Dennis was the blind, irreverent keyboardist who worked with me to start the first church I planted—and who died in his early 40’s of pancreatic cancer, leaving a wife and two children behind. Before I met him canvassing for the new church, Dennis had never been asked to play his instrument in worship. As he told me on his doorstoop over a decade ago, “I don’t know very much church music. I’m afraid I just play at bars and parties.” Then, with a confident smirk he added, “I offered to play in a church once, but when they heard my music, they said I was gonna go to hell someday.” I think he would have loved German!

A few years later, after playing contemporary Christian music, classic rock, and a sprinkling of “religious songs,” in front of hundreds of worshippers every Sunday, Dennis invited me out to lunch one day (the two of us grabbed lunch at a fish place every so often because he loved to get out and Laura hates the smell of fish.) And over lunch he told me he was paying for our food that day because he wanted to say thank you. He was grateful that I had invited him to find his way back to God, and that our church had encouraged him to dedicate his talent, his life, and his sins, and his future to Jesus. As he talked, he teared up a little. Then, embarrassed, he added, “I bet you didn’t know a guy with a glass eye could cry.” Within a couple months Dennis called me to tell me he’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The doctors said he didn’t have long to live, and they were right.

We’ve been blessed with remarkable amounts of liberty and justice here in America, and this weekend coming up is a blessed opportunity for us to be grateful for our country’s soldier-heroes. In fact, I invite you to take your family for a walk through a local cemetery and look for the graves of soldiers. And then, parents, you can lead a prayer of gratitude over one of them.

But there’s another blessing we’re celebrating as a people of Christ this weekend, too. It’s Kaw Prairie’s last Sunday as a “portable church”— and we’ll be giving thanks for this before walking down the street to our very own worship & ministry building—where we’ll sing and pray with grateful hearts again.

If you’re grateful for what God’s done in your life, if you sometimes tear-up when you think of how Jesus has both taken your sins and given you your talents to use to change the world with His love, then I invite you take part in the 12pm walk (or car-procession!) down the street to the new Kaw Prairie Community Church Building. I, for one, will be insanely excited! And gravely grateful, all at once.

Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom. Psalm 90:12