Author Archives: Mitzy Bricker

Old Churches and Churchyards

There is something comforting and lovely about old churches and churchyards. Don’t you think? Perhaps, it is because I am a Virginian. I have heard it said that Virginians take good care of their dead.

Maybe it is because many of our churches and churchyards go far back into our history? A thoughtful, reflective walk is a result from time spent in an old church and its yard. Members of these old churches are faithful in keeping their burial grounds neat and tidy. One can quietly walk around old tombstones and get a glimpse of the folk that came before us and hear part of their life story.

Exploring the Massanutten Mountain in the Shenandoah Valley on horseback is how I joyfully spent my youth. Kids on horses exploring. Packed peanut butter sandwiches for us, carrots for the horses when our hungry bellies stopped us. Many times we would ‘discover’ an old family grave plot in those mountains.

History tells us family folk lived far up on the Massanutten Mountain years ago. They were displaced to make room for the Shenandoah National Park, leaving only old, hardly noticeable family grave plots. Old abandoned farms along the base of the mountain left theirs as well.

We spent time trying to read those tiny headstones while eating our sandwiches with our horses grazing nearby. I do not suppose we were very reverent as teenagers walking all over those graves, but I can still recall the feelings they gave us when reading the stones of an infant, a two-day old child, or a young mother, or a six-year old child, or an ‘old’ 50-year-old father.

Years later clearing newly purchased mountain property in the backwoods of our Virginia mountains one fall, we came across a flat area with stones carefully laid out. It did not take long to see it was a graveyard. No headstones, no names. We kept it cleared out as long as we owned that property.

I still enjoy strolling through old graveyards. Would you like to join me through a few?

Mossy Creek Presbyterian church
Graveyards hold generations of families.
Old trees growing into old churchyard fences.
Galilee Christian Church
Beautiful limestone stonewall
Peaceful
The beauty and wonder…
Well kept old churchyard.
Books could be written on old churches and churchyards here in VA.
Headstones tell a story.
Sometimes hard to read.
Yet they still speak to us.

Five Minute Friday Writing Prompt—Anticipate

I love to anticipate. Do you? The days leading up to an upcoming party, trip or big event. To anticipate it for me has always added extra value to the event and even more time for enjoying it.

What will the weather be? Will this event be enjoyed by attendees? Are they looking forward to this event as I am? Would I ever want to do it again? I can say the biggest event I anticipate is meeting Jesus!

Sometimes even a rather frightful event can be made better in how we anticipate for it. Would you agree? Often those things I was not looking forward to turned out better than I anticipated!

How about you?

Five Minute Friday Writing Prompt—Opinion

Opinions are like noses, everybody has one.

Hearing this years ago made me laugh. It is true for sure isn’t it? It also makes me think. Just where do my opinions come from? How are they formed? What do they say about me? Can we change them?

I am unapologetically Christian so my opinions are rooted in Scripture: What God tells me about myself, the way I am to view life, how to think, how to treat others, how to live with others in this world, and how much Jesus loves me, to name a few.

How about you? Where do you opinions come from? Good questions to ask ourselves every now and then.

Dearborn, Michigan? Why?

I was asked this question recently when I mentioned to someone about my husbands and my upcoming trip to Dearborn, Michigan.

What in the world is there to see?

I did not know, as I have never been. My boss had visited this summer. She knew we were going to a shooters camp nearby and encouraged us to visit The Henry Ford and The Greenfield Village in Dearborn since we were so close.

Looking through the Henry Ford Official Guidebook was intriguing and informative. This museum and Greenfield Village have a fascinating history. Henry Ford never forgot the values he learned from his youthful, rural farm life. He began collecting items from his childhood history along with items related to his hero, Thomas Edison.

His philosophy of “learning to do by doing” and providing hands-on learning opportunities for students, was the vision for The Edison Institute of Technology. So named in honor of his friend and longtime hero, Thomas Edison. Both the Museum and Village opened to the public in June 1933.

Adding collections to both places until his death in 1947 made his the largest in size and scope of American past. It is known today as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.

The front of the large museum is a replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. The perfect front for his museum that too represents American freedom and democracy.

“I’m going to start up a museum and give people a true picture of the development of the country” —Henry Ford

Boy did he! I was excited to go see in person those items I had found in the guidebook. And even though the photography is great in the book it cannot compare to seeing these collections in person.

A full day is not enough time to see and think about these items that made our country, but it is a good start. We never made it to the Greenfield Village as it is closed to public on Monday & Tuesdays.

So, what is there to do in Dearborn, Michigan? I will know how to answer that question next time around.

Alleghany Steam Locomotive 1941. The most photographed item in the museum. Weight: 389 tons!
Quote from A. Lincoln
The very chair Lincoln was shot in.
It is blood-stained…
George Washington’s camp bed.
The bus Rosa Parks was on the day she refused to give up her seat…
Arrow points to seat she was sitting in when she refused to move.
Listening to her describe this event was moving. To be in that same bus was astonishing.
The very limousine President Kennedy was assassinated in.

Seeing these bits of history that hold such stories of our America is profound.

There is something of interest for everyone.
Remember this famous Hudson?
So much on display!

This post cannot even touch what was in that museum. Go visit! You will be glad you did.