Genealogy

I have worked on my family "tree" for more than 25 years now. It's an 'off again/on again' puzzle that I love to tinker around with. All of a sudden some question about my family will strike me and I'll rush off to see if I can find the answer. Questions like--Did my grandfather see military action during WWI? Where is my mother's baby sister buried? What stories can a cousin or an uncle tell about another relative? Then I will have periods when all the work and the puzzle of it lies untouched in what Ron likes to call my "bones box". When I first started working on family history I filled in pedigree charts. (really, that's what they were called) Basically, you could list your ancestor's name, date and place of birth. Date and place of marriage. Date and place of death. There were lines for children born, or for more than one wife. But it usually looked something like this: Louis S. Bauer 1894-1975

b. 24 Sept. 1894

m. 8 Sept. 1920

d. 27 May 1975

And I filled up pages and pages of these charts of 11 generations of my family. 2205 individuals. With every one I have always been intensely struck by the shortness of the dash. I have always felt the intense sadness of an entire lifetime summed up in a - . There is absolutely no way to escape the psalmists words: "as for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more." I want so much for my life to be meaningful. To have impact beyond my lifespan. I'm sure my ancestors wanted the same thing. I am reminded of the bible study that I'm in right now studying 'Holy Habits'. In it I find that it's in God alone that I live and move and have my being. He is ever present...before I was born. In all my trials. Beyond my death. God alone holds the past and the future in eternity. That - is this time here, but it's not all.