Graveyard.

If you don’t think I’m a little strange already I vow to continue to help change that misnomer.  So, here we go again. I like graveyards (I almost said I love graveyards but I don’t want you to think I’m that odd :)).  When I lived in rural Alabama and when I preach at smaller country churches most churches have developed their own graveyards.  That is probably not a wise move in some ways as it ties permanently the church to a location and often inhibits future growth. But that aside, I would go through old graveyards and look at unusual things: there was the man buried between his two wives, the family of seven who were all buried on the same day, the grave that went back to the 1600’s and the tombstone was still readable.  I like unusual epitaphs on tombstones.  I’ve been known on a pretty day with the top down and when I’m not in a hurry (like that’s ever happened) pulling over and stopping at an old graveyard that looked intriguing.  

I preached a funeral last week at an old graveyard, but that’s not what got me to thinking about this.

I opened probably 6 years ago a file called “Blog Starters and Ideas.” Anytime I see or hear something or a thought goes through my mind that I might want to write on I toss it in there.  Often the timing is not right for a post or I don’t have time to develop it or I’m not sure how to develop it but think it could make something good. The problem is that I don’t delete anything in there until I use it.  The thoughts are typically 3 to 5 lines, though a few are whole articles I’ve copied.  So I basically have 62 pages, yes 62 pages of 3 to 5 line snippets.  For those near the end it has virtually become an unintentional  graveyard.  But I even like walking through this graveyard.

It got me to thinking about other sorts of graveyards.

I have a graveyard of dreams: Yeah that’s sad but I suspect you do to. In this graveyard are dead weight goals (not to weight over 200 when I turn 40, a 50 by 50 one, run a marathon every five years, etc), a church plans/goals graveyard, a relationship graveyard, a what I want to accomplish graveyard (learn Spanish, take up throwing pottery, improve my handwriting, etc).

The thing about graveyards is that everyone in them will someday be resurrected. And the thing about my blog graveyard is that I sometimes get to resurrect an article, or a dream, or a plan. Some of them will stay dead and some things need to just stay left alone, but other still have worth and value.

What is there out there that you need to go back and breath new life into?