Despite typing in the title of this photograph in the New York Times search engine and trying a multitude of other combinations, I couldn't come up with the photo, even though it ran yesterday. Hence, the poor scan.
There other blogs, notably miaculpa.blogspot.com, that regularly puts up photos of flag-draped coffins with the simple title, 'The Toll.'
I put this photo in partly because of the poignancy of volunteers putting down more than 5000 Christmas wreaths on graves at Arlington, wondering if Compa's step-father's grave or her grandparents' grave got one. How do they decide which grave gets a wreath or not?
I also inlcude it for the image of the cortege.
Eight years ago, I had the priviledge of officiating at Compa's step-father's burial at Arlington. I had always intended to write about it but four days after the funeral, I smashed my index finger with a sledge hammer as I was splitting wood and consequently never got around to it.
All these years later, I still remember it as a liturgical caress. The grace with which the guard handled the casket, the split second when no one is holding onto it as they switch from facing each other to lining up to walk out of the chapel, the delicacy with which they placed the flag on it... all of it was incredibly moving. There is a timelessness, sadly, of seeing the caisson, preceded by a riderless horse with the boots facing backwards (?) that connects the present with the past and, alas, the future.
I have tried to get my WWII father to consider having his burial at Arlington because it would give him the honour that a church service might not (since he doesn't go to church). He is eligible with his purple heart, two bronze stars, oak leaf cluster and so forth. But he hasn't bitten.
I realise my past few posts have had to do with death but it is all part of the rhythm of being a parish priest and so often, one never really gets a chance to process it all. It's probably why when I sat under all those banners at the 'Wake the Dead' commemoration at All Saints', Chicago, I wept for those whom I have buried but never really got to mourn.
Besides, our culture is permeated with death and if I can't pause for a moment to pray for those who are being buried in Arlington (there are as many WWII vets as Iraq vets), then.....
Here are two more photos of the same scene, pulled from the Arlington National Cemetery web site.
It looked pretty foggy down there yesterday.
One other piece of trivia. The 'Protestant' services get half an hour, start to finish, including getting the coffin and people into and out of the chapel; the Roman Catholic services get an hour. (If we had had communion, I would have argued, qua Episcoplian, for an hour.) As you leave, the next family is entering. It is amazing.
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