Every year, my husband and I spend Veterans Day weekend with a herd/pack/assemblage of his Army buddies (both male and female), most of whom served in the same Army Reserve unit. For security reasons (not really), the location of the gathering is undisclosed.
Generally, attendance runs anywhere from 20 to 50, including spouses, occasionally a few children and grandchildren, and often some well-loved, if not well-behaved, dogs. This reunion began in 2009 and has continued, without fail, every year since then.
Nothing stops the gathering—to borrow from the US Postal Service creed, “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” nor disappointing mid-term election results, nor global pandemics. Most of the attendees are officers, a handful are West Point graduates, and a smaller handful are Army Rangers. Since 2009, two members of this august group have been laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.
Rituals are an important part of the weekend. There’s food—LOTS of food. We’ve had Cuban food, Italian food, barbecue, and Low Country boil. It’s a tradition. The food is so awesome, in fact, that a few years ago, a cookbook was created with some of our favorite recipes.
At some point, there’s a group photo, and someone always complains because he/she was left out. Another tradition.
The ladies play a card game on Saturday night—nobody loses. There are may or may not be a beverage known as a “she-shot.” It’s a tradition.
There’s a fire pit, a few cigars, and a nominal amount of alcohol. It’s a tradition.
As you can imagine, there’s a lot of laughter, an occasional tear, and the same stories are told (and embellished) every year. Again, tradition.
Some of the stories even have names—I could share these stories with you, but then they’d have to kill me and you both. This gathering has become an important part of the history and culture of this Band of Brothers.
In Biblical times, history and culture were learned through the traditions of religion and family. Long before anyone put quill to parchment, a grandfather sat by the fire and told his grandchildren how God parted the sea and how a shepherd boy faced a giant. Those stories were meant to shape the people who heard them.
God built that kind of storytelling into daily family life: “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7).
He also gave His people rituals that made remembering unavoidable. Each year at Passover, families gathered around a table, ate a particular meal, and told of the night the Lord passed over their homes in Egypt: “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations” (Exodus 12:14).
At the Feast of Booths, families camped in makeshift shelters for a week “so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths” (Leviticus 23:43). They ate together, camped together, and told the stories together. That sounds an awful lot like a reunion weekend.
Sometimes God’s people marked their history with something they could hold. After Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua had twelve men carry stones from the riverbed to build a memorial: “When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them” (Joshua 4:6-7). Anyone who has stood among the white markers at Arlington understands. Stones that stand in silence still teach the next generation what was sacrificed and by whom.
The early church carried the practice forward. On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus gathered His band of brothers around a table, broke bread, and said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). He did not hand them a lecture. He handed them a meal. Food, fellowship, and remembering have always gone together.
History and rituals are a foundation for any group, and that includes your own group of family and friends. Maybe it’s Grandma’s handwritten pie recipe, the Christmas Eve candlelight service where everyone sits in the same pew, or the uncle who tells the same fishing story every year while the cousins mouth the punchline. These are the stones we stack on the riverbank so those who come after us will ask, “What do these mean?”
As we enter into the holiday season, let’s remember to slow down, recognize, and be thankful for those traditions and rituals and stories—the happy and not-so-happy—that make us a part of the group. ‘Tis the season of giving thanks.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
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