May 5: The next morning in Paris, I walked over to the Arc de Triomphe. Once again, I stood at the foot of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, my eyes transfixed on the eternal flame. I believed a revelation would occur. Nothing external happened. But suddenly I realized the revelation was within me.
Peace begins with me.
The Unknown Soldier buried beneath the massive monument was a man with a body who fought in Verdun. It’s so hard to remember that fact when you’re faced with the massive surfaces of stone, marble and brass. He had a life, he was part of a family, and he had a heart. In Verdun, the soldiers died. Most walked into the battle knowing they would die. They died fighting in a war that was to end all wars. And yet, the world continues to war on the outside.
For me, there was an echo that I now understood:
Remember them. Remember the gift they gave you. The peace begins within you.
Remember You are the hands of the present generation. You hold the hands of a future generation. You hold the hands of past generations, some now departed, and they in turn held the hands of older generations. Hearts that once beat with life still beat in remembrance.
It is All Souls’ Day, a day not recognized through the spring and early summer of my life. Since writing the words above as the Foreword of Resurgam – Standing on the Ground of Remembrance in 2008, there have been the departures of older generations and the arrivals of younger generations.
Now it’s a day with meaning, a day to pause, to remember them and reflect on all those hands and hearts that once walked on this earth and cultivated the ground in so many loving ways. All the unseen actions that went unrecognized yet made a difference in the future, which has become the present.
To honor them and remember them, I’m sharing “Stones Unknown,” about finding peace in the most unexpected place. The inspiration (not surprisingly) was a stone. This is a chapter from the revised story—The Ground of Remembrance—the fruit received through cycles of seasons from the hearts and hands of older generations. As the early story of Resurgam goes, “They lived. They loved. They have a story to tell.” I have been listening and learning. This small, yet new chapter took 25 years of learning how to listen and trust my heart. It is the beginning. My heart overflows with gratitude for a gift from past generations that continues to grow.
Background: A photograph of a solitary soldier standing on a hill of ruins captured my attention in 2013. (Hill of Loss) Something was familiar. The caption revealed the location: “A solitary American soldier looks at a ruined church on the crest of Montfaucon, France, after the town was captured.” I had been to there! My guide took me to Montfaucon on my way to Cote 304. That discovery and the journey inspired a new chapter of fiction, Stones Unknown in 2022.
From the book “RESURGAM – Standing on the Ground of Remembrance” – the discovery of Montfaucon, France (and the Center for Peace):
I encountered a steel beam from the World Trade Center in Clear Lake, Iowa in 2013. It offered a bridge to an unseen presence. Something lost was unexpectedly found.
In memory and in honor of the unknown soldiers of Alpha Company, many who became known due to the efforts of Phil Woodall. An excerpt from his first letter, so many years ago:
Dear Jean,
East 47 has an answer – the letter to Alpha Company is a poem. It is attached for you. I placed it at the base of panel 47 because on rows five and six are three Alpha Company members: Lt. Gary Scott, Lt. Frank Rodriquez, and PFC Manuel Ruiz – all killed March 29, 1968 in a paddy around Hue. The dates are documented in the book “Dear America,” excerpted from a letter that I wrote my Dad on April 5, 1968; the day after Martin Luther King was slain.
I visited 47E at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Labor Day. It’s been over two decades since my last visit. The photo is my attempt to capture the light, life’s reflections and the promise of RESURGAM, which is a vast interconnectedness that keeps weaving through time.
As for words, remembering Phil Woodall is important. His name is not on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He’s the Vietnam veteran who drew my attention to 47E with two written words: Alpha Company.
So much truth in the words from the banquet speech of the 2015 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich.
“Why do I write? I have been called a writer of catastrophes, but that isn’t true. I am always looking for words of love. Hate will not save us. Only love. And I have hope.
… In one Belarusian village, an old woman bade me farewell with the following words: “Soon we will go our separate ways. Thank you for listening to me and for conveying my pain to other people. I beg you, as you leave, to have a look at my little cabin not only once, but twice. When a person looks a second time, it is not with the eye of a stranger, it is a look with the heart …”
creative meander 