We have a home about a mile from this small church in western Carteret County.
When I drive by this church I am always reminded of the two small churches that were in our community of Tay Creek, north of Fredericton, New Brunswick in Canada.
Church was a big part of our farm community.
We were far enough north that most of what was done in the community had to be done by members of the community.
The idea that you picked up the phone and got someone from town over twenty miles away to fix something was almost laughable.
It was self selecting community. If you were not rather independent, you just did not live there. With weather that had temperatures which could approach one hundred degrees in the summer and got below minus forty Fahrenheit in the winter, it was not a place for those who needed the comfort of being in a city or an air conditioned apartment.
The people of Tay Creek lived close to the land, many had gardens and the families of some had been there since the community was settled just before 1900. All would have put their lives on the line for their community.
One of the interesting things that happened in Tay Creek was that when someone died, the men of the community got together to dig the grave.
People do not just die in good weather. I can remember us having to burn tires in a grave to thaw the walls enough for us to even them up.
When you went to church for a funeral, you brought a pair of overalls and a shovel. After the service was over, we buried the person while the women waited in the trucks and cars.
The church in the picture at the first of the blog is also not far from Camp Lejeune. Today we are hearing the thump, thump of mortars.
If you live down here, you know that live mortar practice often means that some unit from Lejeune is preparing to ship out, likely to Iraq.
Also by living here, we know how young these soldiers are.
It seems like we are sending them to fight what can only be called a war for which no one seems to want to take responsibility.
These wonderful, dedicated, partriotic soldiers live far from the Washington beltway. Someone just makes a call and off they go to the other side of the world to fight for something that cannot quite be defined to anyone's satisfaction.
It is certainly not the way things should work. It is too easy to send someone off to war when you cannot see them or know them. Someone important should be there shaking their hands as they climb on the airplanes.
When you take the time to dig someone's grave and bury them, you feel something of a connection to them even if you only had a passing acquaintance with them.
Maybe we should send members of Congress out to dig a few graves or to watch a little waterboarding. I seriously doubt we would have troops still in Iraq very much longer.
Our brave, young soldiers are too precious to be sent off to war by a government that thinks torture is debatable.
As much as I would just like to lose myself in a new technology project or going fishing once the weather clears up, I cannot. The thump, thump of the mortars will not stop.
