Category Archives: General

By Joe Byrne

I entitled this entry headstone restoration 0 because I wanted to mention two other efforts at headstone restoration, done last year.

One is the headstone of Raymond Porter. One day a family came into the cemetery looking for Porter’s headstone (he was the grandfather, or great-grandfather). Since it was summer, and we’d had a lot of rain, it was swampy in this section of the cemetery (Section H) and it hadn’t been mowed in a while. That is, any headstone in that section would be hard to find. The family didn’t find the Porter headstone, even though they had a picture from a genealogy web site showing it intact. (Note those seeking graves of relatives in St. Peter’s Cemetery: come in the winter, before the green stuff takes over, which makes parts of the cemetery inaccessible, and makes many gravestones hard to find).

After they left, I did some sleuthing. I found Raymond Porter’s gravestone! It was at the base of a maple tree, with the stone (and inscription) facing the trunk of the tree, surrounded by tall weeds (mugwort). I removed the weeds and turned the stone around so it could be read.

Like the other gravestones, one other step is needed: some nice, native, colorful plants around the headstone.

And now the first headstone at St. Peter’s I ever restored: that of Greta Storm. All I did was level the pediment and place the stone (which was a few fee away, lying flat on the ground), on top of it. I used no cement.

A few weeks after my simple restoration, a leaning locust tree fell upon the gravestone. The un-cemented stone didn’t budge! Pretty good for my first time out.

And the locust tree is still alive! Here is another angle of the headstone holding up the tree, now flowering.

So not only did I restore a headstone, without the use of cement, but I also helped save a tree!

By Joe Byrne

Flush with the success of my previous headstone restoration, I went ahead with round 2. I found a headstone in the same line as the others I had restored.

It was the headstone of Emma Carter:

First a quick note on how/why I choose a particular headstone for fixing. My first criteria is the legibility of the inscription. For many of the headstones–particularly those carved of soapstone, limestone, and marble–the inscription has long since been worn away by the elements. That is rarely the case with stones, like this one, made of granite. So granite stones are more likely to get my attention, in regards to restoration, than non-granite stones. In my mind, it doesn’t make sense to spend a couple hours and quite of bit of muscular energy to restore a stone that is blank!

In my previous installment, I showed how I accidentally found a buried headstone that, once unearthed, was remarkably intact (Joseph Digg’s headstone). Well, sometimes you find something underground which is an unpleasant surprise (and I don’t mean skeletons!). Such was the case with Emma Carter’s headstone.

In order to fix the headstone, I had to fix the pediment (the bottom block on which the headstone sits). I did a little digging and tried to use a crow bar. It wouldn’t budge. I dug some more, and then more. That’s when I discovered that underneath the pediment (which was about 2 and half feet tall) was a skirt of cement that went down into the ground another two feet.

Not all pediments have such a skirt. Having one makes it much harder to fix. I’m guessing that a hole was dug, cement was poured into it, and the pediment lowered into the pool of wet cement. If so, they lowered it crooked, so that the headstone had to be placed upon the pediment at an angle (and the ground shifted perhaps). Eventually and inevitably the headstone fell off.

I don’t know if the cement skirt was originally part of the grave. I haven’t dug up enough headstones to know if that’s common or rare. It might have been part of a previous restoration effort. If so, as in some cases, in the name of stability and longevity, the “restoration” made things worse. That is why I am loathe to use cement when I fix headstones. If I set them up straight, and they’re heavy enough, that should be enough. And if they get knocked down, I can pretty easily put them back up. Not so with stone with a crooked pediment set in cement.

That’s why I gave up on Emma Carter’s stone for the moment. I will have to come back and do a lot more digging. In the meantime, I set Emma Carter’s stone upright, nearby.

By Joe Byrne

I decided, as a Lenten project, that I would restore some of the headstones at St. Peter’s Cemetery. The hardest part was deciding where to start. So many of the headstones here are in need of help.

Rather randomly I chose to start with headstones that are (I think) in the so-called “Potter’s Field” section of the cemetery, on the western perimeter.

This was the first stone I worked with. It’s the headstone of Rachel Moulder, who died and was buried in 1935. The work here consisted of moving and straightening the stone.

Then I attended to a stone nearby.

At first I thought it was just a pediment (the base of the headstone), without a headstone. But then I started digging…

Yes, I had to dig up Joseph Digg’s stone! The amazing thing here is that, even though the stone was buried for who-knows-how-long, the engraved inscription, and the carved designs, have not been worn away.

Here is the gravestone restored.

Here are the two stones together:

Though, in my mind, a grave-site is not restored until there are some flowering plants planted nearby. So I’ll have to come back, with flowers.

Next was the headstone of Charles Lee, also nearby. It was leaning forward at a 45 degree angle, and I suspected there was some important text, helpful in identifying the grave, buried in the ground.

Here is the restored headstone:

In some ways, the stone looked better before I “fixed” it. It’s dirtier now, with dirt continuing to obscure the text that was buried in the ground. But I figured a few rain storms and it would look a lot better. I should go back and take a picture of the headstone in a couple months and post it here.

Final note, the first two headstones had as the year of death 1936, and Charles Lee’s was 1937. So, at least in the “Potter’s Field,” it appears that people were grouped by the year of death.

This Martin Luther King Day (January 21, 2019), Tom Hall, a radio personality at WYPR in Baltimore, aired a story on Liz McAlister and the King’s Bay Plowshares action, which occurred on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, on April 4, 2018.

Since that date, Liz has been in jail in Georgia, where the King’s Bay Trident Sub base is located. The trial date has yet to be set, but it will likely be sometime this winter.

The segment includes a short interview with Liz from prison.

Here is the link:

http://www.wypr.org/post/mlks-legacy-pt-2-power-non-violent-protest

Last week we had a bit of snow in the cemetery. It always makes for a picturesque scene. Here are some pics.

Once again, a group from Xavier University graced us with a visit! They came for dinner on Wednesday, which was followed by a reflection session. Paul talked about the history of Jonah House and resistance to war and nuclear weapons, and the fact that community member and co-founder Liz McAlister remains in jail for her participation in the King’s Bay Plowshares action last April. Ausar and Naomi talked about the Jonah House Food Pantry and our partnership with Tubman House, in West Baltimore. And Joe talked about our work on the land in St. Peter’s Cemetery, including gardens, orchards, and forest, describing it as a work of mercy for the Earth.

The group returned on Thursday morning. Joe took them on a tour of the cemetery, after which Ausar took them to Tubman House, to visit some folks who live nearby and to lay mulch on the fruit trees at the urban garden that is attached to Tubman House.

They’ll be headed back to Cincinnati tomorrow. We look forward to their visit next year!

Jonah House once again participated in the Feast of the Holy Innocents witness at the Pentagon. Neither rain nor sleet could keep us away. Four friends committed civil disobedience and divine obedience.

More here:

Reflection: Peace

By Gary Ashbeck

The stories out of Washington have been frequent, bad, and numerous lately. Big stories seem to be dropping hourly. Indictments, bad policy, chaos, and numerous things contrary to our faith. When I first started to contemplate Advent, this was the influence, but within the last week the pace has picked up. It seems that Christians are the most complicit in sustaining this dark moral travesty. I also feel that we have grown weary and complacent. I personally feel the weariness and darkness inside.

There is but one antidote, I realized: a stronger faith community. Pulling together the flock.

I think there are some people who would be happy to see an upheaval in our government. Many would cheer for an impeachment. I’m not so sure. We are a divided people and I think it would only get darker and more contentious… but the daily onslaught against God’s people must stop.

I don’t know how to say it any stronger, so I’ll just say it again. We need to be celebrating Advent with every ounce of energy in our bodies. We need to celebrate Christmas with every ounce of energy in our bodies. I don’t want to sound hopeless, because I am not. I am feeling light and warmth from the last three Sundays. Hope, love, joy, and now peace. I feel energized that I have been blessed to sit here and share my musings on the Scriptures and delight in our fellowship.

Today we start the week of peace in Advent. It’s a short one, as Christmas is only two days away.

Today Mary will give her testimony. Actually no, I added that. The prescribed readings the church has given us are only the first part, that of Elizabeth shouting out for joy of the coming of Mary to her humble house. She will declare how the baby she was carrying was moved by the presence of the baby Mary was carrying. She will shout out that the messianic promise will come in short order on the shoulders of the baby Mary was carrying. The joy in this scene between Elizabeth with John and Mary with Jesus springs off the pages.

But I refused to stop there because it does not do justice to the total story presented in that scene. Mary then utters what we now call the Magnificat. It is frequently sung as a hymn. This is the longest statement spoken by a woman in the New Testament, a rarity that signals its great importance. The message in the Magnificat is so revolutionary that the British banned it from being sung in churches when they ruled India. Guatemala in the 80s banned public readings or singing of it, and in Argentina the military banned any public display of it during the dirty war. It was banned because it gave people hope that God does not want them to be second class. God demands justice. Before Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed, he included this in an Advent sermon:

“The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings.…This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”

I felt this scene needed proper context and representation, so I went to the Women’s Bible Commentary in a chapter written by Jane Schaberg, and also found some additional material from Reverend Carolyn Sharp of the Yale Divinity School. There was much discussion about how Mary had essentially given herself over to God to carry this child Jesus. She will give herself over to raise this child to adulthood and then she will watch as his message, his messianic promise, gets him executed on the cross as a political dissident, an execution encouraged by people who shared his faith but not his desire to level out power dynamics.

In this moment, Mary is given over to prophecy. Sharp says, “Don’t envision Mary as the radiant woman peacefully composing the Magnificat.” Instead see her as “a girl who sings defiantly to her God through her tears, fists clenched against an unknown future.” She outlines the messianic promise but she comes to it as someone who is the most marginalized, most maligned, and, in being pregnant, risks being stoned.

The Magnificat is not a peaceful message. God has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. God has thrown down rulers from their thrones. God has lifted up the lowly. The hungry have been filled and the rich sent away empty. Again, from Schaberg: “Mary’s song is precious to women for its vision of their concrete freedom from systemic injustice—from oppression by political leaders on their thrones and by the arrogant and rich. In the transformed social order that is celebrated, food is provided for the hungry. The spiritual realm is understood as embedded in socioeconomic and political reality. Focus is on the might, holiness, and mercy of God, who has promised solidarity with those who suffer, and who is true to those promises. God is magnified for effecting changes—now in history.”  

But the Magnificat is a message that should bring about a true peace. The messianic promise that she proclaims and that Jesus will repeat in his first public testimony is a promise of upheaval in the status quo. The testimony is so unpopular that Jesus narrowly escapes the crowds who are so angry that they want to kill him. He disturbed the pseudo-peace in attempting to bring about real peace. Later we will see a similar theme in the Beatitudes. People were angry and tried in many ways to stop Jesus. The message does resonate with the marginalized who want his promise to come and suffering to end. It will continue to cause turmoil until change brings about real peace, not unlike how the actions of Martin Luther King Jr. exposed the violence of the status quo in an effort to bring justice and, with it, peace. The pseudo-peace was destroyed with the violence that he lifted the veil on, but his message resonated with those who were treated as second-class citizens in the United States and began to truly threaten the powers that be when he started to call attention to class struggle before he was assassinated.

So, we remain in the thousands of years’ struggle for the fruition of the messianic promise. As we enter the last week of Advent, we must remember that Advent does not and should not end at Christmas. The status quo is immoral and easy. It doesn’t want to raise a real ruckus when injustice occurs. It enjoys a pseudo-peace. Injustice abounds. The mantle of the messianic promise falls on us to continue on with Jesus’ teaching. It is not easy. We are a curmudgeonly sort, easily influenced to build golden calves. We, like the Maccabees, need to struggle to keep the faith. We must disturb the pseudo-peace. We need to gather in community and stand strong. The lessons we learn in Advent help us to continue the struggle after Christmas is gone.

Just before the Magnificat, Elizabeth finishes her greeting with, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the lord would be fulfilled.” Let’s try to keep hope and believe.

What do the words of the Magnificat mean to you?

How should we continue to celebrate Advent after Christmas?