Memorial Day Weekend - 

"Three burials"  

(Joshua, Joseph's bones, and Eleazar - son of Aaron. Joshua 24.14-33)

Memorial Day weekend - we always called it 'decoration day.' I have lots of memories of trips to the old country cemeteries deep in the hills of the Ozarks to decorate graves, hear all the old stories, see lots of relatives, and wander among the leaning and broken old headstones.

A vivid memory is the 'decoration day' when Dad rolled up the windows, tight, on the '55 DeSoto (now THAT was a car!) and parked it in the ditch headed east alongside the state highway that was the south border of the old cemetery.

I think there must have been about as many vehicles in and around the cemetery that day as there were graves to be decorated. Someone heard a 'pop' and said, "Elwyn, I think you just lost your back window." The buildup of heat in our car from the hot May sunshine that day had blown out the big back window.

As we drove down the highway later that day, I thought it was so "cool" that the wind was coming in from that big opening...Dad wasn't that impressed.

I have lots of memories that engulf me today as I reminisce of people and days long gone by. How I do miss them. How I wish I could sit down under that big old tree just south of the Swearengin gravesite and visit with all those folks, just one more time.

They pointed me the 'Way' and said, "walk ye in it!" They beat my bottom when I didn't. They laughed a lot, they cried easily. They loved and hugged and kissed each other all the time...it was so embarrassing. I'd give most anything to experience it again.

Yep, I'm crying...6'5", 285 pounds, mid-fifties, and I have tears running down my face. 

The old song says, "Precious Memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul..." It is something involved in those precious memories that keeps us on the 'old paths.'

That's what this passage in Joshua 24 is all about...we live as we ought because we had elders who had experienced God and we remember. Joshua 24:31. Israel served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel.