Memorial Garden

Have trouble remembering? "AJ" doesn't. A recent article tells that in 2000 she wrote that she "can take a date, between 1974 and today, and tell you what day it falls on, what I was doing that day and if anything of importance occurred on that day. She had been called 'the human calendar' for years by her friends and acquaintances." The very rare condition is called hyperthymestic syndrome, based on the Greek word meaning "more than normal remembering."

There are a few dates from the past that I can vividly remember where I was - the day President Kennedy was assassinated; the evening Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated; the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger; the Oklahoma City bombing; the fall of the twin towers on 9/11. Each was a traumatic national event that broke into my awareness and exposed me to a wider world than the place where I was standing at the moment.

Here, at First Christian Church, a new memorial garden has begun to take shape. Within a week flowers are blooming. I have referred to it as a memorial garden and also as a peace garden. I have been asked, "Which is it?" To me it is both, but I am happy to be consistent in calling it a memorial garden.

Will Provin and a crew of Boy Scouts, leaders and parents created the garden just outside my window. The garden is the fruit of Will's Eagle Scout Project as well as memorial funds entrusted to the First Christian Church. The garden will continue to mature and become a familiar part of the church landscape.

It is a memorial garden. When I stand for a moment in the garden, my memory does not automatically improve or expand. I not not suffer from "more than normal remembering."

But what has happened is that I can stand, quiet myself for a moment, and allow God to help my remembering. Thoughts turn to members and friends from First Christian Church I have known, loved, cared for, and who have cared and nurtured me. Their faces return to me in a few moments of quiet, peace if you would. My only response is "thank you." My world expands to recall so many who have made this church what it is - by their prayers, labors, giving, and risk-taking. I believe you can name one or two or many. In that garden my world expands to see God more clearly, this God who has stirred in their hearts and minds and in mine. My only response is "thank you."

Thanks Will. Thanks memorial fund donors. Thank you families who choose church as a place of remembering. Thank you God.

Take a moment to stand in the garden. Who comes to your mind? Click and comment below and share your memories.