For Wilshire Baptist Church
Sometimes events align just so and you look back and discover you have been on a journey with a connecting theme. This past weekend, for me, that theme was “monuments.”
Early Saturday afternoon I walked a couple of blocks to 11th Street in the old part of Garland to watch as the Travis College Hill Historic District was officially entered into the National Register of Historic Places. In his invocation to open the ceremony, Paul Burns, pastor of Garland’s First Presbyterian Church, spoke of how God did not intend us to live alone but to live in community and that this historic neighborhood has been an example of that for more than a century. Indeed, the work of the neighbors on that street to preserve and share their heritage is a model for others to emulate as they work to welcome new neighbors and visitors into the city’s historic center.
An hour later I was in McIver Chapel at Wilshire to witness the wedding vows of Bob Lydecker and Candy Hall. In his homily, Associate Pastor Mark Wingfield told the unusual story of how the couple first met at the Wilshire Columbarium, where both their late spouses are inurned. From that chance meeting at a monument dedicated to the saints, they nurtured a friendship that grew into love and now a new family. Their story is a testament to their faith and to God’s enduring grace and caring.
Then on Sunday I joined the celebration of the 150th anniversary of First Baptist Church of Richardson, where I was raised. On display were numerous artifacts and monuments to the faith and dedication of the congregation: granite cornerstones, a church bell, pages from sermons given more than a century ago. But the true monuments of the church are the people who have sustained it through the decades. Among them I count my parents and their peers who have been there nearly 60 years.
And off and on through the weekend I visited a sunroom where my father-in-law is living out his days surrounded by plaques and commendations testifying to a lifetime of service to God, country and community. Memories are fading and sometimes he’ll focus on a picture and ask, “Who is that?” We tell him, “Why, that’s you,” and he’ll shake his head in humble disbelief. From what I know of him he was never monument material—not because he wasn’t worthy but because he didn’t want the attention.
Each of these events is a monument to those who have led us to the “You Are Here” sign we stand at today. They’re also mile markers indicating we have not yet arrived, but if we follow their example we’ll find our way.