Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson asked this question in the 1950's. Their answer? "Gone to graveyards, everyone." Yes, it is true. After visiting many museums, sites, and cemeteries commemorating WWI and WWII this spring, Linda and I, on our Europe 2015 journey, discovered that every grave we saw had a flower. Every cemetery was well manicured, free of rampant weeds. The headstones had varied inscriptions, some with names, units and citations, and some with "Known Only to God." So many cemeteries.  So many signs with arrows pointing the direction and kilometers to the next cemetery. Soldier-poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote in November 1918: "I died in hell.  They called it Passchendaele."

In Ypres, Belgium, every evening at 8:00 P.M., since 1928 (Yes, you read that correctly), the city commemorates "The Last Post", a service of remembrance of 58,896 soldiers who sacrificed themselves but who have no known grave, the fragments of their bodies morphed with the fields. Their names are etched in the walls and ceiling of the Menin Gate Memorial. One name is read along with what is known of the soldier's life and duty. Poppies are in abundance in wreaths and on lapels. The mantra is the same: "You are remembered."

I think of a song written from Isaiah 49:14-16: "I will never forget you my people. I have carved you on the palm of my hand. I will never forget you.  I will never forget you.  I will never forget my own." "The Last Post" is a metaphor.

Northern France, in the Alsaac and Lorraine Districts, in Belgium and Luxembourg, poppies are in abundance. Poppies are the silent red symbols of the human cost of war. The poppy has the stubborn grace to grow amidst the denuded battlefields of Verdun, the Somme, the Ypres Salient, and Bastogne. Though its stem is willowy thin and blows easily in the gentlest breeze, it is bright, beautiful, and tough. And blood red. Like people. We are weak and strong, vulnerable yet capable of eye-catching beauty. Brigade doctor Major McCrae immortalized the poppy in a poem he wrote after the death of his friend: 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

During our Europe 2015 journey, I read Phillip Jenkin's book, Laying Down the Sword. He takes a detailed look at the violence texts primarily in Deuteronomy and Joshua, and compares them with violence texts in the Quran. Sadly, there is more violence in the Holy Bible than in the Quran. Jenkins  addresses the sticky question: "Does the Bible justify violence?" His answer is a quote from John J. Collins from his book, Does the Bible Justify Violence? Collins writes:

The answer is simple: if the circumstances

in which you live move you to seek such

justification, then you will find them, and 

the same is true of the Quran. If you don't

need them, you won't find them.

Pogo was right.  The enemy is US. Where have all the flowers gone? The poppies are for US, on the graves of our choices. God have mercy.  Christ have mercy. God have mercy.

Peace!