Sitting on the cold marble chair under the canopy of a pillared room, this statue oversees our National Mall a most sacred place. They called him honest Abe he was a great president, a great man and to some an enemy. He died at the hands of a coward and was immortalized by a nation with gratitude. Today as Lincoln sits on his chair under his pillared gazebo his spirit can hear children at play, children of all colors greed’s and backgrounds. Sitting in his chair the spirit of Lincoln has witnessed things that in his lifetime were unimaginable.
It’s been decades and centuries since these marble men and woman walk and talked amongst the living. Now they sit stand or their names are carved in stone. These stone men and woman will carry on conversations with those who visit by creating thoughts of what was and why it is. The school children, the war widow, the suppressed looking for inspiration as they fight for new rights, the fellow soldiers touching the names on a wall of their fallen comrades, or even a current enemy looking to validate more hate, or a past enemy sharing the sorrow of past hatred. The statue is always both a symbol of what was, and inspiration to what can be. The shadows of the monuments at our great mall travel the grounds and as their shade touches the other monuments their spirits inner act in the stone world they share, its visitors should listen to the advice these spirits will share. It’s in this world of remembrance which brings the cause to what will soon be remembered. These statues tell us through the silence of reverence that everything has meaning and what we describe as current absolutes are merely current circumstances.
“Past yesterday’s can be a reflection of tomorrow, so today we should listen and reflect from what the past tells us, it is then we can improve our tomorrows.”
As these past spirits wander in their shadows they must be amazed by what they see. The reasons for so much pain and sorrow in their live time is validated or explained in their immortal lives. These monuments must be anxious to yell and scream as they see today’s atrocities, or as they witness what those living today believe to be right, knowing their history will prove was wrong. They know this from their experiences and their own history. The past tells us what can happen when the arrogance of men both good and bad drive their aspirations to a conclusion with or without mercy. These monuments will weather and the current care takers will preserve for the future generations. As these future generations visit to remember those long before them. They will also bring life back to these monuments, as all who visit – when they think and dream with the sprits in the shadows of the statues.
“One should focus on why they would be missed rather than on what they are missing.”
Ray, if I could do some magic, I would bring to life just for a brief time these men of great stature, especially during this election period, so that those men and women of arrogance today destroy the little that is left, that is good and solid.