This weekend we visited cemeteries. Family members spanning three generations took to the curvaceous blacktops along the Missouri-Arkansas line.

Blue Eye Cemetery holds the graves of my father, my maternal grandparents and numerous ancestors on my mother’s side. A pair of great-great-great grandfathers fought in the Civil War, one for the Union and one for the Confederacy. In fact, one switched sides half-way through. Family members abandoned homes and farms as they fled marauding bands of bushwhackers. Chaos ruled the Ozarks in those dark days.

At McCullough Cemetery I visited a later generation of ancestors who relocated into the neighboring highlands following a feud. Great-great uncle Bud shot and killed three men—related to him by marriage—in a dispute over a rail fence. Apparently, they had it coming, and obviously, Bud was good with a rifle. Fearing reprisals, entire families left established farms and homes to start over on rocky glades no one else wanted. Prosperity lagged.

Along with hard times and occasional violence, family members started churches and businesses and families, raising kids and cattle and hogs and chickens and goats. My great-grandfather Martin, present at the feud, opened a general store on Indian Creek. My daughter and I watched for snakes as we tip-toed through the crumbling foundation, today on the bank of the Indian Creek arm of Table Rock Lake. Land buried under impounded waters once held gardens and baseball fields and picnics. I grew up water-skiing over ghosts.

The visits reminded me that life brings challenges and tragedy and decisions and nuance and wonder and change. Always change. But in the midst the Lord remains constant—and in Him lies our hope.

I will utter dark sayings from of old, things we have heard and known…we will not hide them from our children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord…that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, and that they should set their hope in God.

I enjoyed the stories from my mom and aunt, and especially my cousin Connie, the family historian. I appreciated the younger generation who listened attentively. Memorial days such as these help us pass on our hope found in God, the only lasting source of hope throughout the generations.

Psalm 78 in week twenty-two of reading the Bible cover to cover

He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights (Psalm 18:33).

The last few days I’ve watched deer glide in and out of the woods. A couple of nights ago, at dusk, we drove down a heavily wooded, gravel road. Our truck scared up several deer bedded down in dense cover. They immediately popped up and bounded away, easily jumping over downed trees along a rocky hillside.

The next day, I worked with my brother to clear brush off a steep bank alongside Lake Taneycomo, in southern Missouri. Between trying to balance on the unstable slope and dodging patches of poison ivy, I failed the “feet of a deer” test. I ended up in the water, although I avoided most of the poison ivy. I never felt secure on that particular height.

The deer looked on with pity. Whether they leap and bound when startled, or carefully place their feet while feeding, grace always marks their movements.

I don’t know where David watched deer. Probably during his long days caring for sheep. I imagine him observing the difference between the clumsy sheep and the athletic deer—and that drew him to the Lord’s goodness.

David called upon the Lord, who saved him, and in his relief he felt as free as a deer in the mountains. I’m enjoying his understanding as the deer drift around me this week here in the Ozarks.

Week twenty-one of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Benoit Gauzere

Ornan’s threshing floor—a broad, flat, hardened surface of stone or clay—stayed busy processing the recent harvest. But when an angel approached, all work stopped. His four sons ran and hid (a common response when people in the Bible sighted an angel). Ornan stood slack-jawed, too awed to move.

King David followed the angel and offered to buy Ornan’s property. David hoped to stop a terrible plague he caused by displeasing the Lord. Ornan offered the property for free, but David refused, insisting on full price. Ornan took the deal, David built an alter, and the Lord accepted his sacrifice with fire from heaven.

Several years later, Solomon built the first Jewish temple on the site of Ornan’s threshing floor (2 Chronicles 3:1). Invaders, first the Babylonians and later the Romans, eventually destroyed the Jewish temple and looted its contents.

Today the Temple Mount holds The Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine. Three major religions—Judaism, Islam & Christianity—all revere the old threshing floor and cling to its significance.

David purchased the property after his sin with the census led to the death of 700,000 men. Now it’s the most contested religious site in the world, as recent riots underscore. A long history of violence characterizes this one-time scene of harvest and hope.

A place birthed in bloodshed remains bathed in bloodshed.

2 Samuel 24 & 1 Chronicles 21 in week twenty-one of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo shows Aerial views of the Temple Mount and parts of the Old City of Jerusalem