Chaplain's Corner

written by Bro. Tony Gunter, HMC Chaplain

May 2008                                                           

May is a time for stones for many of us in northeast Alabama.  I remember my mother telling me not to play around the stones for there was the story of some little boy who was playing around the stones when one toppled over on him, killing him.  The story was told in a most dramatic fashion to get my attention.  I didn’t play on the stones “too much”.  I was always curious about the small stones with lambs on the top of them.  I remember how my cousins and I would move flowers from stones that had many flowers to stones that had no flowers.

As I became a pastor whose attendance dropped to virtually nothing during the month of May (and now extended even to June), I dreaded the time for stones.  However, as I have grown older, I have come to realize that the time for stones is much more.  It is also much more than a Decoration Day.  It is a time families get together and get, again, in touch with their roots … and distant cousins seen but once a year.  Church and the times for worship are important.  (To that end, my churches usually had early services in May to accommodate those who went to decorations and family get-togethers.)

I have come to realize time for families, even, and especially, extended families, is important.  Such times are times for catching up – and perhaps, in the best sense, finding out who needs our prayers.

I have come to believe visits to places of stones may be very good and very healing.  By being reconnected to friends and family, we may also be reconnected to what is important for us.  As we learn what is important to our family’s into which we were born and raised, let us not forget we are born into another family as well.  God has claimed us for His own.  While you remember families, don’t forget to remember the one who went to the cross for us.  In Athens, it was at the place for stones Paul proclaimed the identity of the Unknown God.          -tony