It’s often difficult to know what someone is thinking, except when it’s written in granite.
I have unearthed the thoughts and feeling of 100s of people here in Dromara. To date the oldest granite carving I’ve found dates back to 1790 You may be surprised to discover how similar they are to the one made in 2022. What these granite etchings reveal may shock you. We’ll come back to that in a minute.
This is the third of my Hidden Dromara blogs, their purpose is to help us slow down and hear what the world we have created tells us about our values and longings. As I’ve said before when talking about the gate [here] and the photo [here] our values and longings shape the worlds we create more than we realise. For example, why does Dromara have a playground? I’m sure 200 years ago there wasn’t one. Why is there one now? Well, we're afraid our children will get hurt so the public playground provides a space for them to play safely and learn to mix with others. You see how our values shape our village.
Now back to the granite engravings. Where are they hidden? We need to tread carefully as they are found in places where more public tears have been shed than anywhere else, where hopes are dashed and hearts are broken. In Dromara’s two graveyards people’s thoughts are written large. “At peace” “Called Home” “Fell asleep” "Departed this life" "Until we meet". Here’s the shock. They reveal that we believe there’s more to this world than what we see. There are things happening that we cannot taste with our mouths, touch with our hands, hear with our ears or see with our eyes. What makes this revelation so shocking is that we live in a time and place where the official messaging is, if you can’t experience it with your physical senses then it can’t be real.
Our headstones tell a different story or more accurately reveal we believe we live in a more enchanted world. “The physical world is all there is” you might state with conviction. You have no time for this supernatural mumbo, jumbo. Yet the granite does not lie. It seems we display an honesty in our most vulnerable moments that we hide when we’re strong. That’s clear too from conversations we have around death. What do we say to one another when someone dies? “They’ve gone to a better place” “They’re looking down on us” “They’re with granny now” No matter what we say we believe about the world; death opens up for us a world we don’t often consider.
In his book “This is going to hurt”, comedian, Adam Kay writes with alarming honesty about his time as a hospital doctor (it has become a TV series). He speaks of a tragic moment when he had to do a test on a stillborn baby.
“I dress him again, look up to a God I don’t believe in and say, ‘Look after him’”
In this heart-breaking moment the contradictions in Adam’s heart are revealed. And we are no different. There are moments in life when we are so weak we can no longer suppress these ancient notions of the supernatural. Someone has described it as trying to hold a beach ball underwater. It takes quite an effort to keep it under the water. When we are distracted or weak, we lose our grip on it and it pops to the surface. ‘Here I am, you thought you had buried me, but I’ve been here all along.’ In the same way we cannot suppress our belief that there's more to this world than what we see.
Though I’ve use death as an example, this blog isn’t about death. I've written elsewhere about death [here]. We’ve not thinking about our view of death but our view of life. How we see the world. Is it a world that is just physical or is there more to it than what we can see? Death just happens to be a moment when the thinness and frailness of our view of life is exposed. But it’s not the only moment.
It seems we can’t go through a day without the ‘beach ball’ popping to the surface. Have you heard people saying (or do you say it yourself)? ‘touch wood’ ‘best of luck’ ‘fingers crossed for you’ ‘it happens in threes’ These phrases don’t fit into the story that says all you see is all you get. A different story is required to make sense of these sayings. A view of the world that recognises the unseen as well as the seen.
We live in an enchanted world. When we pause for more than a minute, switch off our many distractions and find a quiet space we begin to see what a magical place this world is. And I don’t just mean the butterfly fluttering on a flower magical, I mean the very real sense that we are spiritual beings in a spiritual universe. We know that, though we suppress it. The question is what story do we tell ourselves to make sense of this reality?
Have you seen a fairy tree? These are protected trees making a nuisance of themselves in the middle of a field. To damage them is to bring the wrath of the unseen fairy world down on you. Is that the best explanation of there’s more to this world than what you see?
Or is there a malevolent evil impersonal force that we must pacify? We touch wood, carry a rabbit’s foot (unlucky of the bunny), don’t step on the cracks, wear the same pair of shin pads for every football match (ask John Terry about this one) in the hope that we can manipulate these unseen forces to bring good to our lives. Or at least to not bring bad upon us. Or maybe it’s not an impersonal force, maybe it’s those who have gone before us that are watching over us. I loved my grannies but can I expect them to work from beyond the grave to bring good to my life and ward off evil.
We need a better story than these. We need a more convincing story. One that accounts for the beauty we see in the physical and the mystery we feel in the spiritual. One that celebrates the seen without belittling the unseen and the other way around. A fuller beautiful story that recognises and explains our reality, struggles and all.
We have that in Jesus.
“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16)
Jesus explains the beauty of the world around us. That butterfly fluttering on that flower- all his work. Sunsets, summer evenings, the warmth of friendship- all his ideas. The world we live in seen and unseen originated with Him. Created through Him.
When we remove Jesus from the explanation of our reality we need to find fairies and grannies and other stories to fill the gap. Yet none of them fit. Maybe we push the beach ball underwater because we don’t want to consider the foolishness of our attempts to replace Jesus with these wild notions. We can’t build our lives on them. None of them ultimately satisfying us. The two words at the end of that bible quote explain why they're ultimately unsatisfying. We are made ‘for him’.
Jesus isn’t just the explanation of what we see and how we feel, he is the goal of our reality.
Our very existence isn't just explained by him, it’s made sweeter by him.
The unseen God stepped into our physical world and a brought a sweetness to life. A sweetness felt by those who knew him best (1 John 1:1-4).
Hidden in our hearts is a longing for an explanation of our reality. Jesus is both the cause and goal of the world we inhabit.
John Greg died in 1917. He was 6 years old. The family engraved these words on his headstone:
"I am anchored safely anchored
Anchored never more to roam
Anchored by the side of Jesus
Anchored in the souls bright home."
(found in 2nd Dromara Graveyard)
The granite engravings express something during the fragile moments of life that we mute when life is full and free. There is an unseen reality that is just as real as all we can see. The question is; what story best fits it and can you anchor your life in?