Due to my aging body, I could no longer crawl under the locked gate. This time a security guard let me in with a key.

It was as if time stood still. The place always looks the same. Like times before, I scraped back the dirt to reveal the grave marker.

Nothing had changed. Its unkempt ground seemed holy. I wondered if lives represented by overlooked graves didn’t merit more remembrance and respect.

A rutted road cut through the cemetery.

Newer graves on the left side of the road bear markers covered with dirt—each settled slightly below the surface. Gopher burrows, prairie squirrel tunnels, and huge ant beds scar the soil.

The oldest graves with tall headstones are to the right side of the dirt road.

Those graves in the distance, marked by row upon row of arched headstones now stand without anyone to remember.

The scene of abandonment brings to mind the great contrast it holds to other highly honored and well manicured cemeteries throughout the world.

Here, instead of polished white marble, these stones are gray—weather worn from rough queried stone.

This too should be a monument for it is holy ground.

Hidden from sight by a protective wall of Mesquites—few know of its existence. From its ragged appearance, those who do seemingly don’t want to remember.

In 1897, Texas Governor Joseph D. Sayer commissioned a citizen’s group to select a location to build the world’s largest epileptic colony. Two years later the Texas State Legislature selected Abilene as the site.

On March 26 1904, the only epileptic colony in the United States was ready to receive a portion of the nations disenfranchised. Arriving by train, horse, and wagon, Dr. John Preston admitted 104 new residents on opening day. By August of the same year, 201 patients lived within its hospitals and resident cottages.

In 1925, the mission expanded to receive those with other types of damaged brains. Twenty-two short years later the resident population numbered 1,324.

After multiple decades of operation as Abilene State School, in 2009 the effort adopted a name that more closely described its mission—Abilene State Supported Living Center.

The old cemetery continues as a dried out, scruffy, untidy, piece of hidden West Texas prairie. The remains of its residents rest in peace and still hide from society.

It dawns upon me I am exactly alike the cemetery residents.

I am human created in the image of Creator God. With genes from the Eden fall, I too have body parts that don’t functioned according to God’s original specs.

Cemetery residents dealt with misfiring brains. The rest of us experience the misfiring of other body parts including our brain. We are all exactly alike.

Here is what I think.

In Christ’s church, we are far too eager to isolate fellow believers over defects. Some have imaginary blemishes I invent for them. Others deal with demons I hope I never know.

At the foot of the cross, we are exactly alike—sinners saved only by the gift of the cleansing blood of Jesus.

When I accept his gift, Jesus greens-up the cemetery, replaces the locked gates with a Welcome Center, roots out the mesquite, plants furs in their place that reach toward heaven, and gives everyone a polished white marble headstone declaring, “This life was a good life. Washed in my blood it was perfect.”

Bright celestial lights beam down upon those whom the world despised.

We are all exactly alike.

However, there is one way to stand out from the crowd.

To stand beneath the halogen grace of God I give claim of my life to Jesus.

The very act of standing with Jesus should make all of us seek unity with each other as we unite in Him.

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells – Reflection on Cross Church

Gary@GodReflection.org