It was January 1. It was the day we celebrate the dawning of a new year, full of untold possibilities and promise.

I spent part of the morning exploring a cemetery.

Hollywood Cemetery, in Richmond, dates to the 19th century. It is enough of a tourist attraction that staff members sell maps of grave sites, and offer walking tours in the warm months. The Confederate section -- with its rows and rows of gravestones -- witnesses to the tragedy of the Civil War in a way no history book could do so. The monuments at the graves of Lewis Ginter and JEB Stuart cause a visitor to pause. There are the graves of two Presidents of the United States of America, and the one President of the Confederate States of America. There are six Governors of Virginia buried in the cemetery.

There are headstones with short inscriptions which express piercing, heartbreaking grief. There are headstones with long lists of accomplishments, clearly composed to emphasize the departed one's importance in history.

But here's what came to my mind after a while: the fifth stanza of Isaac Watts' text in the hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past."

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
bears all our years away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the op'ning day.

Forgotten?

Yes, even for the hundreds and hundreds buried at Hollywood who were prominent and highly accomplished.

For instance, to use some examples of the most illustrious: tell me something about any of the six Virginia Governors buried in Hollywood. Fitzhugh Lee. Charles T. O'Ferrell. John Garland Pollard. William Smith. Claude A. Swanson. Henry A. Wise. President James Monroe is buried in Hollywood. You know of the "Monroe Doctrine." Anything else you can tell me? Would you recognize the name of President John Tyler (also buried in Hollywood) if our local portion of Rt. 5 wasn't named the "John Tyler Highway," because it goes past his house? Quick: what years was he president?

We are forgotten so quickly. In only three generations there is no one with a living memory of someone after his/her death.

Who will remember us? The God who created us, and who will be "our eternal home." There is grace in this.

And what will endure is the work we do for the dawning kingdom of God on earth: the peacemaking, the work for justice and reconciliation and healing and salvation. That will endure because it is God's work. That will endure because we model for the next generation how to live as citizens of God's kingdom. The kingdom advances as each generation builds on the work of the previous. We received the work from those who went before us, and we pass it off to those who come after us.

Life is so fleeting. There is so little that is truly important -- including most of what we worry about and agonize over! What endures is God. There is grace in this -- especially on those days when you and I feel burdened by the weight of the world.

The future is not ours. The future is God's future!