Veterans Day, Armistice Day, and Grace Extended

It is Veterans Day, and chunks of the nation fight over election results.  I envision election officials who continue counting, as they surely must be, because all the votes must be counted, even when they won't change the results of the election.  I worry about the long-term implications of all of this, but at the same time, the country has suffered many an assault and survived.  It's not as orderly as I would like, but the older I get, the more I find myself muttering such things.

It is Armistice Day, and I think of everyone who survived World War I, the veterans, those left behind, the grieving, the landscape itself.  I think of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  I think of all the scorched earth that we must repair.  I have loaded the towels in the washing machine, the towels that I put in the sills of all the windows that leak, the towels that were necessary because of a tropical storm in November.  I wish that we could sign an armistice with the climate, but here, too, it's probably too late.  The planet will survive, but will we recognize it in a few decades?

Today I am thinking about a different November 11, a week-end that feels very long ago now, when I was at Mepkin Abbey.  On the Sunday of that 3 day week-end, the Abbey buried its former abbot, Abbot Francis Kline, who had been taken early by leukemia, a tough blow. Part of one of the services was out in the monks' cemetery, and all the retreatants were invited out with the monks.  It was access to the private area that retreatants almost never get.

The cemetery was simple, as befits a monastery.  I was struck by the way that the simple crosses reminded me of the French World War I cemeteries:

I took the above picture from the visitor side of the grounds, but it gives you a sense of the burial area.

Later that Sunday, there was a concert and a reception for donors who keep the monastery going.  It was a bit jarring, to see the shift from a monastery that's silent so much of the time to a party atmosphere.

This year, when it seems like so much of what we could count on has crumbled into dust, it's good to remember the monastic traditions.  It's good to remember that institutions can survive despite long odds.  It's good to remember that institutions that seem out of step can actually be important in securing what has been important to civilization.

Of course, we may not fully understand the implications at the time.  We may not know what's being saved.  We may not see who is doing the saving.  But we can rest in the knowledge that the important work is being done.

Do I really believe this?  Most days.

I'm a person who believes in the idea of grace, the idea of salvation that's freely offered, even before we think to ask for it.  Most days, I interpret that concept through a theological lens, a narrow, theological lens.  These days, I'm hoping it also has wider implications.