The hyphen in the stone.

The hyphen in the stone: largely ignored by passersby, who tend to look for interesting or old stones—maybe with funny names—yet it’s the most important part.

Despite the status, race, gender, or generation of the person’s name chiseled into the headstone, the content symbolized by that little slash is absolutely monumental. It contains an entire lifetime. Love, pain, loneliness, joy, tragedy, family, rejection, passion—-and external events (like war, famine, and politics) which have a personal and internal impact. The hyphen in each stone is, well, everything. It’s the essence of human history.

If the past is what happened, and history is how we interpret what happened, and the past only becomes history once it’s written down, then what happens if no one writes the story of each hyphen? The person fades first into the memory of his descendants and friends, and then as THEIR hyphens appear, the person disappears altogether. While it’s true that we are forgotten within three generations, it’s also true that our stories make a huge impact on the world—whether our role is known by subsequent generations (such is the case with presidents and war heroes) or our stones tip over from neglect and are overgrown with weeds. Historians are constantly unearthing the roles ordinary people have played in the development of past events which directly impact the present. You’re one of those people—and don’t ever forget it.

The hyphen matters.
What you do while you’re here matters, how you live your life matters, just like all the actions of your ancestors matter.

The next time you visit a graveyard, don’t forget the hyphen in the stone.

{Acts 17:22-31}