Remembering a Veteran

This afternoon, I received an email through a Disciples of Christ listserve with this photograph, taken today in Arlington National Cemetery:

It caught the emailer's attention on account of the Chalice (Disciples of Christ) symbol on the gravestone. I didn't know that there are quite a few religious symbols that are authorized to be used on the stones - a staggering diversity, from Methodists to Muslims to Mormons.



Someone else emailed the link to the Arlington National Cemetery Website page for Gregroy Anthony Wright, the fallen soldier whose stone bears the Chalice in the photograph with the President.


He was an immigrant from Jamaica and the father of a three-year old daughter. He died in Iraq, from a roadside bomb attack.

He has become the face of Veterans' Day for me.

God of hope and peace, God of life and love, you broke into the world not with the clamor of battle but with the cry of a tiny babe; now break into the lives of your children around the world. May we open ourselves to the indwelling of your Holy Spirit that we might be converted from violence to your peace. Thus transformed, may we convert our weapons of destruction into implements of healing and production so that all your children know justice, wholeness, and well-being. We pray in the name of that tiny babe, Jesus the Christ, the Prince of Peace. Amen. [Presbyterian Peacemaking Program]