Memorial Day will be observed next Monday, May 30, a day to honor those who gave their lives in defense of this nation. While honoring our fallen heroes, Memorial Day offers an opportunity to reach out to the living, too, by recalling the original spirit behind Memorial Day-remembrance, yes, but also reconciliation, in the aftermath of the Civil War.

The war between the North and South is not this nation's only civil war, however.

There are other civil wars all around us.

There have been for years.

Not fought by armies but struggles carried out within families or between friends who have become estranged.

On this Memorial Day weekend, why not take the opportunity to honor those who have fallen by raising a broken relationship in our life from the dead?

Perhaps the best way to honor those who died to preserve our way of life is to live that way of life most fully. To do so includes redeeming those who are lost from our lives because of something we have yet to forgive and reconcile.

To reconcile means to “restore to friendship or harmony” and that is a restoration journey worth undertaking, far better than continuing to be the undertaker of a relationship into which we will not breathe life.

A journey worth undertaking, even if with just one step-the crucial first one-on this Memorial Day Weekend.

The shortest journeys with the deepest meaning also begin with a single step.

With the end of each such civil war, peace follows into our lives to take its place.

From dissonance to melody as we restore friendship.

And then harmony, when melodies meet voice to voice in that restored and reconciled relationship.

They don't even have to be joined.

Just let them resonate, each distinctive note, in the same space.

Two people together.

None of us can single-handedly end any war on this Earth.

But we can still give peace a chance.

Each of us has it within our power to end a civil war in our own lives.

In that spirit, may we bring this world closer to the day when nations follow that example and there is no longer a need for any man or woman to die in the field of battle.

-JKW-