Erecting a New Sign

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A couple of months ago, I posted about the cleanup we did at Potter Field.  That's the prison cemetery.  We noticed that the sign to cemetery had rotted away.  We took it home with us.  Nyghia Nye made a new one.  This morning we took Nyghia's sign back to the cemetery and put it up.  This smilebox chronicles our endeavors.  Actually, Nyghia did all the work.  We offered encouragement. 

As we surveyed the cemetery, before we departed, we all saw a yellow butterfly flutter above the graves.  How's that for a sign from God blessing the cemetery?

Potter's Field

We volunteers in prison ministry in the Bethany Community, got together this day to clean up the prison cemetery.  This is where unwanted men go.  If an inmate dies, and the family does not claim his body, he ends up in Potter's Field.

Here it is.  First glance told us that there were a lot of branches and sticks to pick up.  We also decided to rake up as many pine needles as we could, too.

This is Sister Ann picking up here and there.

And this is Gary picking up.

I felt sorry for this one.  It
was the only broken one,
so I made sure I planted
the most flowers around it.        

Some graves didn't have crosses.  Some had cement squares with numbers.  Some had both.  Sister Ruth said some men are buried with no markers, what so ever.

How do you like this veteran's grave?

             It is a corporal work of mercy to bury the dead.  Today the Bethany Community honored our brothers by doing what we could.  There were no names, some had numbers, some had nothing.  Where once these men lived, with a family, with love, with a life, with dreams, and hopes, here they rest eternally.  May God have mercy on them.  Rest in peace.

The Prison Cemetery

It's called Shady Nook, and it's down a little used road, next to the town's sewage plant. Nothing much to look at except dead, dry grass, dead leaves and bare earth. Trash and broken bottles, discarded cups, used condoms, and such lie besides graves. There doesn't seem to be much order in the arrangements of the graves. Random crosses with no inscriptions. No names, just prison numbers mark the final resting place of a dead inmate. Who cares? Isn't this the final indignity?

Here is a wooden cross made from two pieces of wood just taped together with "RIP" written in marker. We have taken away a name and made this human being a number. Here lies the proof.

What does this say about us, our society, our civilization?

Lord, have mercy on us.