Burr Oak cemetery scandal in historical perspective
In one of the more bizarre crimes of this or any other year over 300 graves in suburban Chicago's Burr Oak cemetery have been desecrated by cemetery employees, who are accused of emptying the plots and reselling them to new customers, pocketing the money. The out-of-town owners apparently had no idea this was happening.
Sadness, outrage, and grief are just some of the reactions felt by the public in general and especially by the families of those formerly buried in the graves. How could anyone even think of doing such a thing, we ask.
As I read about this grisly crime I wonder how I would feel if something similar happened to my family graves: the places where my parents and my daughter are buried. Certainly outrage would be one reaction.
Another would be a sense of violation. These are places very special to me, very personal, and someone would have invaded them with no hint of any feelings of compassion, respect, or understanding.
Because I'm a Christian I don't believe my family members are in those graves. They are places of remembrance, but they aren't my loved ones' final resting places. The bones are there, but their spirits have long since departed that location. When I think about them it isn't a grave that comes to mind but an image of meeting them in heaven.
Centuries from now those cemeteries may not even exist. Any hope that they are permanent is probably a false hope. Still, I would be angry if that ground were desecrated.
There is a marker on each site, giving the name, date of birth, and date of death. That makes the ground significant. I have no Lincoln Memorial or Washington Monument to remember them by, but that little plot of ground and the small gravestones serve the same purpose even though I live too far away to visit very often.
How anyone violate a grave this way simply for money? Our cemeteries are sacred ground.
Yet for centuries our aggressive, economically-expanding society has done the same thing to Native-American burial grounds all over the country. In the name of progress we have dug them out and bulldozed them over to build factories and shopping centers, highways and housing developments.
When the Native Americans have tried to stop us the courts sometimes have sided with them, and we have yielded grudgingly. At times, in the name of progress, we've won.
In the past decade scores of cases passed through the courts in efforts to get permission to build "big box" stores and four-lane highways where for centuries Native-American burial mounds have been located. We are outraged over what has happened at Burr Oak, but how outraged have we been about the desecration of Native-American cemeteries?
How could someone even think of desecrating the graves at Burr Oak? We don't have to look far to find the answer. All we need do is look inside ourselves to see how easy it is.