I am submitting this on the supposition that it is of interest to list members. It is a news article written by the chaplain at Fort Monmouth, a military installation in Monmouth County, NJ. I apologize in advance if anyone finds this inappropriate for the Brooklyn and/or Monmouth County lists. Larry Lanzaro Chaplain's corner<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Talking stones Chap. (Col.) Hugh A MacKenzie Garrison Staff Chaplain "I told you I was sick..." a 19th century epitaph. "You're doing what?!" asked my study buddy after I informed him of the topic for my doctoral project. It was, "The Cemetery Considered As A Context For Death Education." He wasn't the last to raise an eyebrow. I had to fight mightily to get approval by the peer review group and my faculty advisor. Our society, unique in the annals of human history, has decided to deal with the universal reality of death by not dealing with it. Some cultures raise pyramids. Others have extensive and involved rites. Others erect a whole sub-culture around death with attendant art, music, costumes, literature and music. We pave it over. We shoulder it aside. We pretend it just doesn't exist. We wonder why our youth often become fixated on the topic for death has replaced sex as the new pornographic taboo. You see, a culture is nothing more or less than a vehicle for maintaining and propagating certain group values and beliefs. Cultures, dedicated to preserving a distinctive way of life, are by their very natures, designed to outlast individuals. Therefore a culture's biggest enemy is death itself. Go ahead and ignore it but death will not be denied. That's where cemeteries have and should still come into play. They are important cultural repositories. It's really quite simple. Memorials are, by necessity, made out of stern and durable stuff. And durable materials like stone, metal, ceramics, are difficult to work with and often expensive. So the medium limits the message i.e., you only get to put down what is truly important. This makes even the average cemetery an open-air library of history, emotion, thought, belief, poetry, art, and even humor. It's all there if you know what to look for. There if we would only take the time and overcome our prejudices and fear to look and consider. My family made annual pilgrimages to two if not three cemeteries on Staten Island. Mom would pack a picnic lunch and off we'd go. Amid the lush shrubbery and well-trimmed lawns my brother and I would be regaled with stories of long departed relatives. Soldiers, sailors, pioneers, boat builders, housewives, young babes and old crones. Most dead long before I was born. Yet, I felt connected to them and realized that my ancestors while dead, were still a part of who I was. I also came to realize that I would join them. History took on a whole new meaning well before I was ten years old. What a shame that death has become such a taboo. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, author of On Death and Dying relates a telling story in the preface of the book. Being a good clinician, she did careful groundwork at a well-known Chicago hospital in her intention of interviewing terminal patients. After extensive staff work and many meetings with administration and nursing departments, imagine her chagrin when on the first day of interviews not one terminal patient could be found in the 1,200 bed facility. We miss so much and understand so little. Perhaps it's time for you to pack up the old Ford and take off for the cemetery. I guarantee that you will discover much about human nature and your own destiny. "Teach us to count how few days we have and so gain wisdom of heart..." Psalm 90. Come. Let us reason together.