They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah, II:4

quote by Buddha

Monday was Memorial Day

Granite Industries , in Barre, Vermont, supplies headstones for national cemeteries. They have done so since the Civil War. "Every few days, the men who work the line inside this cavernous monument factory see a different sort of headstone emerge from the sandblasting station, bound for a fresh grave in a veterans' cemetery. ..The dates of birth on these slabs are jarringly recent: 1981, 1982." Boston Globe May 28, 2007

The quarry in Barre and a marble quarry ninety miles away provide the stone. This week-end I looked at stones carved by artisans from the same type of material and I also found stones and rocks in natural settings. There is no sandblasting here listing the name of a soldier.

Certainly its a time to reflect—and a time to honour those who died.
But I want to see a time when there are no longer sandblasted names of soldiers on tombstones.

"Peace is the only battle worth waging."

Albert Camus

"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free." Amen

The XIVth Dalai Lama