wfn.org | Texas church creates 'Fields of Remembrance'

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Oct. 10, 2001 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-71BP{460}

NOTE: A photograph is available for use with this story.

A UMNS Feature
By John Lovelace*

The fields at a United Methodist church in Flower Mound, Texas, are white,
but not with crops ready for harvest nor with the blossoms of wildflowers.

The fields are white with crosses.

Trietsch Memorial United Methodist Church, a 3,000-member congregation,
created the Fields of Remembrance to honor those who died in the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and in Pennsylvania. Church
members planted more than 5,000 white wooden crosses, each one in
remembrance of someone killed in the tragedy.

The crosses will remain at least through Thanksgiving as a way to make the
number of fatalities visual and realistic, according to John Thompson, the
church's projects coordinator.   

The idea for the Fields of Remembrance came from a Sept. 22 ad-hoc meeting
involving Thompson, the Rev. Jim Ozier, pastor, and other church leaders.

"We figured that people who couldn't do anything else could make a cross or
paint one and put it in the ground," Thompson said.  

The idea was presented to the congregation with only one note of caution:
church members could not ignore the denomination's call for special
offerings to aid relief efforts. A special offering answered that concern
with $22,000 for relief, and more than 50 people volunteered to help with
the crosses project. 

The basic building blocks for the crosses are eight-foot sticks of 1-by-2
wood. Volunteers in home workshops and garages cut three crosses, consisting
of a 21-inch vertical post and a 9-inch crossbar, from each stick. Nails or
screws join the two pieces.  

Thompson estimated that 500 people, from kindergartners through senior
citizens, have painted crosses. Those who are able are invited to plant
their own crosses.

Trietsch church's response to the airborne tragedies doesn't stop in the
Fields of Remembrance.  On Sept. 23, representatives of several vocations
most affected by the Sept. 11 attacks took part in a worship service litany.
They included a pilot, a flight attendant, a firefighter, a policeman and a
paramedic.  

An Oct. 6 prayer seminar, which had been scheduled months ago, was held for
those in career transitions, particularly in the airline and high-technology
industries.

"Obviously, this took on a new direction as of Sept. 11," Thompson said. As
part of that new direction, he said, the wife of a military person subject
to being called up volunteered to head a new support group for members
related to the armed services.
 
Local media have reported on the Fields of Remembrance, and Thompson has
been quoted as saying that the crosses are not just about Christianity,  but
about human lives lost.
 
He told of a small child gently pounding the cross she had painted into the
ground. "This one's for me," she said.
 
Her mother stepped forward quietly and said, "No, honey. This is from you
for someone who was killed." 

The child took up a second cross and as she planted it said, "This one's for
Daddy." 

With a lump in her throat, the mother said, "No, honey. This one is from
Daddy. I hope you never have to do one for Daddy."

# # #

*Lovelace is editor emeritus of the Dallas-based United Methodist Reporter.
This story will appear in the Oct. 12 edition of the North Texas United
Methodist Reporter.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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