In many towns and villages, Memorial Day is known as "Decoration Day." It sets off the imagery of freedom and democracy.

Yes, Memorial Day--fireworks, high school marching bands decked out in colorful uniforms marching in unison down Main Street playing John Phillip Sousa's musical pieces. There are speakers and politicians everywhere, flowers on graves, flags waving and flapping in the air, family picnics, fried chicken, softball games, joy, laughter, tears. This is the obvious and visible side of Memorial Day.

A gray haired woman with a scarf around her head, old skirt, and worn sneakers is kneeling by a grave side with tears running down her cheeks. She is still mourning the loss of her sons in a war in a foreign land thousands of miles away. She wears the medals on her tattered blouse--the medals given by a thankful nation for the lives of her sons sacrifice. The blouse is tattered, but it was the blouse she had on the day her sons went to Fort Dix. She talks to the crosses herself and slowly walks to the car to go home, where she works in the yard all day with her flowers. These flowers are placed periodically on the graves of her boys. Her husband reads the newspaper all day--he hurts too much to go anywhere that day.

Freedom also can be as quiet as a whisper inside a cabin door in 1863, "Mr. Lincoln said we are free."

Our past is vital. It provides identity and the dreams that have guided us individually as a nation, and as a faith community.