115 Smiling Faces

The whole family went to the state capitol of Wisconsin yesterday. The state capitol is in Madison, named after our fourth president, James Madison. The domed capitol of Wisconsin is the fourth largest dome in the world and the largest in the United States. It is the only domed capitol in the USA that is made completely of granite.

The tour was amazing. The rotunda is spectacularly overwhelming with its volume, space, art and marble. Marble floors, marble walls, marble columns cover every square inch it seems.

On the second floor of the rotunda, on one side was a high school orchestra playing the Star Spangled Banner and other American patriotic tunes. On the opposite side was a display of 115 smiling faces.

There were photographs displayed in groups of four. On each collection was a photograph of a smiling man or woman ages 19 to 48. They were photographed by themselves, with their friends, with the wife or husband, their kids, their pets, their moms and dads. It was a touching display.

Each man or woman in the photographs had three things in common.

1. They were all from Wisconsin
2. The were all in the United States military
3. They were all killed in action in the War on Terror...

I made it to about the 9th photograph before everything around me went silent. I didn't hear the orchestra, I didn't see the people milling around me... I just saw these young men and women smiling, laughing and enjoying life with their families and loved ones and before I knew it my shoulders started to shake, my face contorted and my vision became blurred as I started to weep over the loss of these precious lives.

I wept unashamed as other people just glanced over the display and kept on going enjoying their tour of the domed capitol. My mind's eye saw the funeral services with people draped in black, with loved ones clenching onto Kleenexes and women's eyes smeared with mascara. My heart experienced the silence that is always accompanied when a member of the military slowly and deliberately in march like fashion approaches a member of the family with an American flag folded into a triangle in their white gloved hands and kneels before the family and says with bowed reverence..."This flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation..." 

The sense of loss was overwhelming for me in those moments...

My iWitness...

Several thoughts went through my mind at the Capitol, but this one stood at full attention and gave me a salute...

"Oh Lord, let there be peace on earth..."

The angels said it best...

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 2. 14)

May the day come O Lord when friends and loved ones may once again place their hands on the cheeks of those 115 Smiling Faces...

And that's my iWitness...
Laugh often and Fear not!
David!