The Clarke County (Alabama) War Memorial: Kairos and Chronos United in the Sacred Commemoration and Contemplation of Five Wars

Abstract

Greater love has no one than this; that one lay down their life for their friends - John 15:13 As we contemplate laying down of one's life-for family, for friends, for country, for ideals-the ideal of freedom strikes a responsive chord for Americans. It is ingrained in our collective psyche and supported by our nation's founding documents. The United States of America's Declaration of Independence confirms our commitment to that ideal: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness (The Declaration, par. 2). Because we such a high value on freedom for ourselves, we are willing to extend that unalienable right to others, whether on our own continent or elsewhere in world-and that course of action can lead to military conflict. When conflict ends, those who have given ultimate sacrifice of life to maintain principle of freedom are usually honored publicly in some commemorative fashion. The focus of this article is to illustrate how one Alabama county memorialized its honored dead from not one, but from five wars: Civil War, World War I, World War , Korean War, and Vietnam War. Giving Voice to Place Beiden C. Lane states: A curious transformation of consciousness occurs when 'an ordinary place' ... - a mere dot on map-becomes gradually (or perhaps even suddenly) a of extraordinary (53). This transformation from a mere neutral location (topos) to one suggestive of energizing forces and imagination (chora) has been debated since of ancient Greeks. Aristotle considered place (topos) as an inert container, as a point of no significant influence on human beings who inhabited it (Lane 54; Aristotle 59-60). On other hand, Plato proposed place (chora) to be the wetnurse, suckler, and feeder of all things, which finds its center in human experience and calls human beings to a common dance or 'choreography' most appropriate to their life together (Lane 54; Aristotle 59-60; Plato, 48, 51). Lane further intimates that when individuals experience common dance in deliberate ritual activity, such as commemorating human events, it is involvement in ritual activity that transforms a from topos to chora for participants (54). In that mutual experience, becomes sacred, offering an opportunity for reflection and connection to things present and past. That shared experience is linked to a Greek word for time: kairos. In contrast to another Greek word for time -chronos, which corresponds to passage of repetitive equal divisions of time, such as minutes -kairos indicates an unrepeatable moment when events of great significance come to be gathered in life of an individual or people (55). In instance of experiencing a public memorial, it is a rare opportunity to experience both kairos and chronos simultaneously-connected across (55). The conflict in experience, however, often arises from conception of public memorial's form. Public Memorials In his article, Monument and Memory in a Postmodern Age, Andreas Huyssen indicates that remembrance as a vital human activity shapes our links to past, and ways we remember define us in present. As individuals and societies, we need past to construct and to anchor our identities and to nurture a vision of future (qtd. in CaIo, par. 3; Huyssen 249-61). No contemplation of American past can exclude Revolutionary War, because it united a group of unlikely individuals who formed a nation committed to freedom and justice for all of its citizenry. Nor can Civil War be excluded, because it ripped our nation apart as we dealt with issue that all were not free. The conflict caused our nation to reconsider its priorities and to build anew American identity, inclusive of all freedom-loving people. …