monument

I think all of us, to varying degrees, wants to be remembered after we’re gone. We want our lives to mean something to someone, enough that years later people still say, “Remember her? She . . . .”

David’s son Absalom wanted that. This what I read this morning, in a passage that described the death of Absalom: “During his lifetime Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself, for he thought, “I have no son to carry on the memory of my name.” He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.” (2 Samuel 18:18)

It’s really kind of a sad way to try to preserve your legacy. The idea of a monument is to make people look and wonder, “What did this person do to deserve this?” For example, on a recent vacation to Kansas City there was a park dedicated to a woman; I googled her to find out that she had been a long-time civic leader, especially active in developing the parks system, so a grateful city named a park after her when she retired. The only accurate answer to those who asked about Absalom’s Monument would have been something like, “He didn’t have kids and was afraid no one would remember him, so he paid for his own monument.”

Absalom teaches me a different lesson, though: people remember you primarily for your actions. Absalom’s name has indeed been remembered, carried down through the centuries by God’s dictation so that anyone who reads the Bible knows who he was. But we all know the truth of Absalom’s self-absorbed ambition that led him to manipulate everyone around him and attempt to kill his father.

Around my town, there are people who know me as Pete’s son, or Dawn’s husband, or Amber or Brandon’s dad. Or now (even better) as someone’s grandpa. More, though, know me as that guy who put in 25 years with the Army Guard and is Operations Manager at Vogel’s. And a few remember what I did on a handful of occasions when the stuff hit the fan and things could have gotten really bad.  But of all those things, what will people remember 50 years from now?

There are people who still remember my grandpas and grandmas, and Dawn’s too, as hardworking Godly people who made a difference at church and in community. There are local heroes who played pro football or started large businesses. What will I be remembered for?

It strikes me that the very best legacy of all would be some souls won for Jesus, or strengthened for service, people who because of me clung to the hope of the cross and changed their families and neighborhoods because of it. Have I done that? It’s hard to know, but I’ve tried, and am trying. If there’s ever a Greg’s Monument, I want it to be some Christ-following kid in a four-generation home of faith, whose great-grandma heard or saw something from me that helped her see Jesus.