This past month I visited Manila,
Manila
a bustling headquarters of commerce and interaction, a large city with much to see and do, but beyond the industrial hum and endless selection of malls, shops, and restaurants I found a peaceful resting place. My team, Stay Salty, had plans to chill, catch some down time in the capital city, and enjoy the benefits of a large selection of tangible options to gratify the senses. Our whole squad strongly believes that a bed is a luxury, so I completely understand taking a break from the ascetic lifestyle we are embracing on the World Race. However, for my part, the shops, noise, and bright cookie cutter presentation of the capitalist world isn’t worth the hassle that it bestows upon those who search for it. Instead, I found myself in search of something different in Manila, and I couldn’t even articulate to myself why I was drawn to it.
Somewhere along my departure from our ministry in Bulakan, Bulacan to Manila, I found that I had made a resolution in my heart, to see the American Soldier’s Cemetery in the capital city of the Philippines. In many ways I felt like I was leaving on an expeditionary pilgrimage to see what was there, but I had no idea what I was going to see or experience. Whatever was calling me, I just needed to get myself to the cemetery.
After a few hours of walking, crossing, asking, and GPSing, I found myself in front of a well kept area with hedges and a gate. Welded a little below eye level on the front of the gate was an inscribed metal plate that read “Property of American Monuments Association” along with a good amount of fine print. It was a relief to know that I had found the place I was looking for, and to have a familiar part of American culture before me, even if it was in the fine print of metal plates and uniformed efficiency of opened gates.
Unsure of how to proceed, I sheepishly walked through the gate, and in doing so entered a different environment entirely. Perfectly aligned, white crosses stretched out across meticulously clean, green, cut grass, and the crosses appeared to never end. Before this point in my life, I had no idea that one view could show so many graves, and it overwhelmed me.
Regaining composure I approached the guard standing in front of the entrance. He was a Filipino man, muttering a few words in broken English, trying to communicate that he needed to see some form of identification. Scrabbling through my wallet, which consisted of a debit card, a picture of myself, and some Filipino pesos, I began to panic. None of our group brought identification with us, because we were afraid of getting it stolen in the capital city. Now, after traveling 2 hours through a dense urban landscape, I thought I might miss what I came here for.
“ID?” he asked.
“I don’t have one,” the words scraped out of my mouth like nails on a chalkboard.
“ID?”
“I don’t have one.”
“No, sorry, a name. A Name,” He clarified or perhaps he was just having mercy on me.
“Something with a name on it?” Do I have something with a name on it? I asked myself.
“Yes, a name,” he replied.
Strangely enough, the only thing bearing my name was a debit card, and he used that. Now, looking back on it, it seems a fitting identification for an American, a debit card.
Hastily, he wrote down my name, as I gave him the card. He tells me that I’m free to enter. Walking past him, I come to a large, circular fountain near the entrance to the cemetery, and from that view I can see down a long road that divides into two, with a degree of plant-life separating the two running lengths. Ranging somewhere between a quarter and a half mile, the road leads up to a solemn, shear structure with marble stairs. On either side of the road were rows of white crosses, and when overlooking them I became aware of how deathly quiet the place was.
Texas, Tennessee, Michigan, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Ohio and all the rest, ring in my head as I walk down the gauntlet of graves reading the home states of these men who gave their lives for my country on my way up to the main memorial. Each white cross hits a different place in my heart, as the state names trigger different individuals in my mind. Pride for my country begins to overwhelm me, as 16,000 soldiers Killed in Action, buried on foreign soil, remind me with every step how weighty the price of freedom is.
Next, I become acutely aware of the years they died, 1941 to 1945, almost three quarters of a century ago, and at that moment, I realized that these soldiers died for me, a half century before I was even born. These graves were part of my inheritance as an American, and there’s no excusing the fact that these men died for the future that I have now. With each step the unshakeable truth was that I was indebted to these men, and that there was no way to pay it back. All I could do was say “Thank You,” but that seemed too little, not enough. My lifeboat of self-preservation was tanked by facing reality—men died that I might live, and through that fact my life somehow gained meaning. My life somehow needs to matter more, because they didn’t die so that I could play video games all day, so that I could live my life void of caring for others, or so that I could shirk my responsibilities. They died so that so that Liberty, Freedom, and Life could be lived to the best of its ability, so that the truth could be upheld, so that their families would be taken care of and live in a world that was good.
I come to the end of the road, and begin to step up the marble protrusions that lead me higher. When I reach the top there are great slabs of finely cut rock that make up pillars running all around a circular awning that encases a large field that has two flags flying above all else, the American flag to the left and the Filipino flag to the right. Directly opposite of the entrance a tower rises above the circle, and it boasts reliefs running its full length. Cutting across the lawn, I rush myself to that tower.
Inside, mosaic pieces make up every wall, and there is only one floor making the headspace massive. There are two inscriptions, one on the right and one on the left, and then a large picture of a woman holding flowers on the back wall. Below the figure of the woman are four kneelers, and a box with crosses that looks about the same as the ark of the covenant with the ten commandments to the right of it. On the left is a place to write your name, and record your homage. In the quiet echoey chasm that reaches upwards, towards that sky, is a silence and awe that begs you to take some time and reach out to God, to thank Him for what you have, or to fight Him for what He’s taken. Here among those kneelers, the center of the cemetery, is where we make peace with death, war, fighting, and why the world is as it is as many inscriptions remind us of the fates of those with unmarked graves.
Standing there I think for a bit read both inscriptions on the walls, and begin my walk home around the marble circle that contains the grassy lawn. Every slab of the supporting stones around the circle is filled from top to bottom with the names of the soldiers engraved in the stone, all 16,000. Overwhelming the pillars, the names speak, just as the graves did on the way up: “The life that I now live wasn’t free, it came with a cost”
Walking back down the gauntlet of graves, to the gate I entered through, the reality of the cross sets in, as I pass so many white crosses buried around me. Jesus’s death grips me like nails in my hands, and I still can’t fathom the death of God on that cross. Time and again I ask God to reveal to me the length and depth of that love with which He loves me, but I don’t think I know how to receive that kind of love, I don’t think I want to stare that love in the face, and I don’t think I want to be broken by that Love. Love that overcomes death, torture, and the grave is terrifying in a way that few things are, and because of that It’s easier, sometimes, to think God doesn’t care about me. Maintaining eye contact with my life circumstances is easier than aiming my stare at God’s love, because then I have to own up to the reality of His sacrifice for me on the cross and my reality as a sinner in His magnificent presence.
This stare calls me higher as a person, and I cannot refuse to live out what I know I need to. My life needs to meet the value of the sacrifice or at least live worthy of the calling, but there’s no joking myself about that. I don’t have the ability to live a life worthy of 16,000 people dying for me, I don’t have the ability to live a life worth the son of God dying for me, and I don’t have the ability to live a life worth even one person dying for me, but I can accept the gift. To refuse what God or these men did would be profane, and to ignore it would be grievous as well.
It was a long ride back to Bulakan, Bulacan, thinking about the repercussion of what I found that day, but in my heart I felt Love more than anything. Those 16,000 soldiers showed me a perfect representation of the Gospel, in a way that I had not understood until then. A part of grace is accepting the Love of God, because we don’t deserve it and we can’t equal it. Paying back 16,000 people for their deaths in the line of duty is impossible. However, I don’t think that those soldiers would have you pay back those deaths; in fact, I think they’d want you to live freely in light of what they’ve done, not to equal out some score.
Grace is difficult for me to grasp as a person, but God gives me glimpses of these things, and I’m starting to understand. I’m starting to understand that God Loves me in my heart, and not just as a fact. Thank You for reading, and I hope this helped you as well
-Stephen Zenner
