Signs of Life at Thayer Cemetery

“We saved you a seat,” is a lovely message when it is coming from a friend when you are running late.  It is a much more concerning message when you see it engraved on a bench that doubles as a tombstone.  Say what you will, I find witty comments on gravestones to be disquieting rather than funny.  That particular remark I remember from a cemetery in West Virginia that my friends and I were wandering around during a lunch break while we were on a summer mission trip.  Another one that stands out in my mind is from a small cemetery I used to visit: “As I am now / soon you will be / So then / prepare to follow me.”  It was a small cemetery called Thayer Cemetery.  I was located at the very edge of Northville at 6 Mile Road and Napier.  During the dog days of summer, when the freedom afforded by summer break had transitioned into days of boredom, my sister and I would walk there. When 6 Mile transitioned from asphalt to dirt and gravel, we knew we were almost there.  A half mile more and the building at the center of the cemetery would appear from around the trees.  At the time, the windows were boarded up and the building was covered in graffiti.  Only half of the plots were filled, but this place felt forgotten by time.  The writing on many of the gravestones was worn away by acid rain.  Some were broken.  Many were covered in moss and dirt.  We would wander - reading the stones that we could - noting relationships and calculating when people passed away.  Too many people were far too young.  And then we found the stone with those words.  I remember reading them and getting chills, even on that hot summer day.

We had first discovered Thayer Cemetery when we had moved to the area and would drive around aimlessly after school, trying to stretch the drive home from 7 minutes to 30.  By this point, the endless sprawl of suburbia had tapered off and the houses grew more and more sporadic.  I don’t know what drew my sister and me back to that place over and over again.  Something felt special about seeing something that felt forgotten by the world.  It felt timeless, even if we knew that was an illusion.  The grass was always cut, and the graffiti was eventually painted over.   Yet the place felt static and unchanging.  The cemetery was only half full, yet no one seemed to add to it (and let’s hope that no one ever left…).

It may be odd to say, but Thayer Cemetery felt dead.  It didn’t feel dead because it housed the remains of people long since passed.  It felt lifeless because we never saw anyone else there besides us.  No one seemed to visit.  No one seemed to care about the moss and graffiti.  No one seemed to know stories about the people there.  Many people didn’t even know that this place existed.  My sister and I could visit, we could hold on to the memory, the names on the gravestones and the poems inscribed on them, but that would never be enough to make Thayer Cemetery feel like it was anything other than a forgotten burial ground.

Most people today know the markers of human life: heartbeat, pulse, brain activity, etc.  Knowing what signs of life there are in other things is much more difficult.  What do we look for when considering if a TV show is truly alive rather than a zombie kept alive by the will of studio executives and writers willing to cannibalize the jokes of earlier seasons?  When is a remake or reboot a living work of art rather than a soulless cash grab?  When is an organization living out its mission and when is it on life support, kept alive because of its legacy and reputation?  When are relationships life-giving and when are they a memorial for reminiscing about a shared history?  When do we truly feel alive, and when does it feel like we are a monument to a life we once lived?

Our Annual Meeting is not just a time to remember the year that just passed nor is it a memorial to what has been and now is no longer.  The annual meeting is a check-in point where we see if our congregation still has signs of life and ministry.  It asks us to reflect on whether we have responded to our calling and if we have the tools to do so next year.  It is a time to celebrate what has been but also to lay plans for the road ahead.  It is a time to make changes if we discover that we have become frozen in time, like a carved stone left out in the wind and the rain.

There are folks in the church-world, particularly those who have been a part of church who have closed, who share the sentiment that, “As I am now / soon you will be / So then / prepare to follow me.”  I am not yet ready say that this congregation is ready for the grave; but if we truly want to live, we need to be able to say why and then work for it.  So, join me this Sunday after worship for our yearly physical check-up where we will be assessing where we have been and what is ahead.

See you all there,
Pastor Chris