Calm Joyful Remembrance: Recall, Recount And Respond

Think only of the past as its (calm joyful) remembrance gives you pleasure. Jane Austen
Resting Place of Peter Frederick Stackman and Infant Daughter Mathilde

This weekend is Memorial Day in the United States.  This day of remembrance began after the civil war. Honor was expressed by decorating the graves of fallen soldiers.  In fact it was called Decoration Day even by my parents.

It became Memorial Day as a US Federal holiday in 1971, the year I graduated High School.  In practice today it is an opportunity to remember family and friends who have passed as well as honoring fallen soldiers of all wars.
In November in the USA,  we celebrate Veterans Day specifically to honor living veterans and soldiers on or near Armistice Day.
Calm Joyful Remembrance:  Memorials are important
In the past, our pastor spoke on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend regarding the importance of these times and the traditions that go with them.  A memorial, in many cases a stone of some kind, causes us to remember, which means to:
  • Be Mindful
  • Recount, Repeat and Rehearse
  • Record
The purpose of this remembering is to:
  • Recall the past.
  • Recount to those in the Present
  • Respond to the future
 You see, this idea of remembering is what THE STONEBRIDGE is really about.  To remember the past, learn from it in order to repeat what is helpful and avoid that which is not.
The BLOG serves as the “recounting to those in the present” piece.  You are “those”!.  It is my belief that telling lost stories serves to inform us in our moving forward because we have paid attention to the lesson of the past.  This is what remembrance is about.
Remembrance Of A Historic Home’s Namesakes
My husband and I are not always able to travel to the resting places of our families. Geography and schedules do not laremembrancerge always allow gatherings of our clan, so we instead, visit the resting places of the HahnStackmanSteinbuchel- Gouldner– Wilson clan at Maple Grove Cemetery and The Old Mission Mausoleum near-by.
 Calm Joyful Remembrance
These are the families for whom our historic home is named and whose descendants we have come to know.
It’s nice to have an adoptive family of sorts.  We have visited a few of these places before but since I have been diving into the details of their lives,  and posting my findings on THE STONEBRIDGE, these visits have a deeper meaning.
Like us, the living relatives of the  HahnStackmanSteinbuchel- Gouldner– Wilson clan are no longer local.  Thus, we visit and decorate the final resting places of these, our historic family.
Today is ours to shape into tomorrow as we inform ourselves by the past.  Happy Calm Joyful Remembrance Day!
What will you do to celebrate Memorial Day this year?  Please comment below.  
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One thought on “Calm Joyful Remembrance: Recall, Recount And Respond

  1. Great article, thanks for sharing, I’ll have it in mind when I visit Yad Vashem in the coming week.

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