Pennies on Headstones

At Decoration Day, I noticed a few headstones with pennies left on them and we were discussing what that could mean.  I came home and did a little research and it’s such a neat tradition that I wanted to share it with you.

I knew of the Jewish tradition of leaving stones on graves so I started there.  There was more to it than I realized.  Apparently, this tradition may have started out very practically as stones were necessary to protect a grave.  Over time, it became a symbol of respect to place a stone (more of a pebble now I think) whenever you visited.

This coin tradition is similar, but seems to have military roots according to Military.com.  Way back, the ancient Greeks would put coins on the eyes or in the mouths of fallen soldiers.  They had the idea that the dead might need some funds in the next world.  During the Vietnam era, challenge coins representing individual military branches became popular as a memorial.

Different denominations of coins may be left based on your relationship with the deceased.  Pennies are most common and indicate remembrance.  Nickels are for schoolmates, dimes for co-workers and quarters indicate you were with the person when he or she passed away. 

For military graves, the nickel may indicate you trained together, the dime that you served together and the quarter again indicates you were at his side when he passed away. 

If I had a loved one who’d died in action, I think it would be a real comfort to find a quarter and know that another hero had visited.

While it’s a new tradition for me, this is definitely one I want to continue.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that the coins are eventually collected and used to fund cemetery maintenance.

Memorials and Unknown Graves

My Sunday School teacher has been teaching through the book of Matthew and a couple of weeks ago as we studied Jesus’ dinner with Simon the Leper, my mind went to Decoration Day.

Tomorrow is Decoration Day at Campground. We’ve talked about Decoration several times and I will undoubtedly return to the subject again, hopefully from different angles and with new information to share.  This is a holiday that historically was anticipated on the mountain the same as Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, which may explain why it came to mind so quickly when I read Jesus’ prediction in Matthew 26:13.

Allow me to remind you of the story – just days before the crucifixion, Jesus and his disciples shared a meal in Bethany, “in the house of Simon the leper.  There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.”  His disciples thought that was awfully wasteful since her gift costs a year’s wages, and they imagined they could’ve better spent that money.  In verse 13, Jesus predicts:

Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

First, I want to say that I am often struck by the living nature of God’s Word.  I know I’ve read that passage and verse many, many times.  I’ve probably heard a number of sermons taken from it.  Yet it popped from the page anew with this reading.

Matthew doesn’t give her name.  In fact, according to John MacArthur, the same account is given in the books of Mark and John with only John relating that this was Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus.  Both Matthew and Mark choose to relate Jesus’ prophecy without sharing the name.

It made me think about the tomb of the unknown soldier – from the US to Ukraine, Britain to Brazil, most countries have a national monument containing an unidentified soldier in memory of all the fallen and especially those who could never be returned to their family.  The President usually visits the tomb in Arlington Cemetery once or twice per year and Queen Elizabeth frequently visits the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.

Jesus’ words also made me think of the numerous unnamed graves in our local cemeteries.  Marked by simple stones, many of them may have borne names at one time.  Yet today they stand reminding me of the many people who passed through our mountain home, struggled, rejoiced, and suffered before me.  Their lives were vastly different than mine, but the struggles, joy and suffering are the same with every generation, aren’t they?

Just as we remember the example of devotion and service shown by that woman in Bethany when she anointed the Savior with oil, we can be inspired by the memories of our own ancestors. Tomorrow we will gather at the cemetery and lay flowers by stones carved with names and dates.  And we will remember.  We will re-tell stories – hopefully we will learn something new - about family and neighbors long gone. 

Blackberry Winter

It’s 80º as I write this at noon and the forecast is for a high of 82º this afternoon, yet there are still blooms on the blackberry briars.  I already have it on my calendar for next spring to chronicle the various Tennessee Mountain winters.  Hopefully, we are nearing the end of the cycle for this year, although we’re still 2 weeks from the Campground Decoration Day and I’ve bundled up for several of those events.

Every year I hear people (and maybe I’m one of them) lamenting that it may never warm up and ‘we’ll have to have a fire on the 4th of July’.  But I think these cold spells have been happening so long that we’ve given them names – Blackberry Winter, Dogwood Winter, Easter Squall. 

Perhaps after we’ve weathered the sweltering Dog-Days of summer we forget how late in the spring we wore our coats.  And after the bitter cold of wintertime once we shed that coat we are reluctant to pick it up again. 

Warm summer days inevitably arrive, heating the soil and spurring gardens to grow.  I’m behind schedule this spring and my garden isn’t even completely planted so I haven’t worried too much about the cool nights.  When I heard my neighbors saying their beans and corn were in danger, I tried not to mention too loudly that they’d planted early and taken that risk.

These blackberry blooms may mean a cold snap in spring but they will be replaced by juicy berries in summer so that’s the part I’m looking forward to.

House Work

I have a major house-project going on so I need to take a few weeks break from the Tennessee Mountain Stories Blog.

I thought I’d point you back to a previous story and coincidentally enough this week in 2015 I began writing a series about “Our Heritage in Houses”. So I hope you’ll visit that story and at the bottom of the page, click the line to go to the next one in the 8 week series, “The Patterson House”.

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The Old Old Songs

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I have written here many times about music.  It tells our stories, motivates our works and memorializes our dead.  The history behind hymns in particular fascinates me.

As I was looking at Easter music this week, I noticed the date of one hymn , The Day of Resurrection.  The Praise for the Lord hymnal (Praise Press, 1997) credits these lyrics to John of Damascus c. 750.  While that may not be the oldest hymn in the book, it’s the earliest date I have ever noticed.  So that drove me to research both the song and the author.

Hymnary.org tells me John was from Jerusalem where he was born into a wealthy family that served the Muslim caliph.  After his father’s death, John assumed the duties until he was about 50 years old.  Then, he dissolved his household and joined a monastery where he would spend the rest of his life writing both poetry and prose.

Christianity Today further details his work in the Greek Orthodox Church where he fought to keep religious icons in their services despite the Byzantine Emperor’s quest to remove them.  John of Damascus convinced at least the people, if not the bishops, and icons are “an integral part of Orthodox worship to this day.”

The lyrics of this song are stirring, “The Lord in rays eternal, of resurrection light; and listening to His accents, May hear so calm and plain, His own “all hail!” and hearing, may raise the victor strain.” And “Let all things seen and unseen their notes in gladness blend, For Christ the Lord hath risen, Our joy that hath no end.”

While I don’t particularly enjoy the tune Henry Smart associated with John of Damascus’ lyrics in 1836, this is certainly a song that I will return to.