My parents were each raised on the farm during the great depression.  Consequently, they shared many customs and perspectives. One was “Decoration Day”, where everyone went to the family grave yard and set out flowers by the ancestors headstones. It was how they observed Memorial Day.  So, this Memorial day weekend, we did the same thing although it was not planned, but sheer serendipity.

We roamed around looking at the graves, trying to make out some of the ancient dates on the worn headstones, noting our familiar family members among the other family names represented.  One family name brought forth recollections of fearsome tales that I heard as a youth, of rough mean people who were to be avoided as much as possible.  Yet, here their ancestors were buried along with everyone else, with similar words and markers.

Looking into the open sky I had an epiphany of God’s view of the souls of men.  All the world’s designations, marks, fashions, and yokes will be stripped away.  Each soul will contain the essence given to it by God and shaped only by the eternal events that would endure without end.  There on the threshold of eternity nothing of the world will remain, no sickness or infirmity; nothing to denote social class, no poor or rich; no titles distinguishing educational rank from imbecile; no indication of athletic prowess or handicap; only clothed in heavenly raiment, perhaps light.

This realization came with peace; there is rest and light in freeing ones mind from the weight of the world, even for a moment, in a glimpse of eternal realities.  There is much more that can be said about the Judgment, Heaven, and Spiritual realms; this was only a peak at the distortion, even blindness, that this world brings upon our understanding and the value of every human soul.  “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?  Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?  For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. (Matt. 16: 25-27).