In early December I came across an episode of the old black and white Twilight Zone television series called “The Changing of the Guard” (the last episode of Season 3). I have spent a lot of time thinking about it and watching it more than once.

This story is set in 1950. An elderly professor is being retired after 51 years of teaching poetry in a boy’s school in Vermont. He begins to feel as if he has made no positive contribution to the world around him and contemplates suicide. In this state of mind, he wanders out into the snowy winter cold, with his pistol in hand. Standing before a statue of famous educator Horace Mann, he raises the pistol to his head. At that moment he hears the school bell ringing. Puzzled, he wanders into his classroom. As he stands there, he watches the ghosts of former students take their seats, many who had passed away. They share the lessons he taught them, lessons in courage, humanity, and self-sacrifice. One was a United States Marine who died on Iwo Jima during World War II, receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor. Another was the first to die in the battle of Pearl Harbor, but only after he had saved seven men trapped in a boiler room aboard a United States Navy ship. A third was a medical scientist who had offered to take x-ray treatments in an early experiment to destroy cancer cells but ended up dying of leukemia anyway. There were others who shared the morals and values they had gained from their interactions with this humble teacher of boys who became good men.

It is quite a contrast to the chaos, anger, and hatred of the changing of the guard America has been experiencing during  the 2024 presidential election season and its aftermath. We could have used a few good men and women taught by such teachers.

Having now reached Senior Citizen Status in my own right, I think more and more about the changing of the guard in my family and in my sphere of influence. Have I taught them well enough? Have I passed on the values and lesson they will need to successfully navigate through their own lives? Only time will tell, as the professor found out in his vision.

The Old Testament Book of Proverbs is filled with gems of wisdom, in particular Proverbs 22:28 when it tells us to “Remove not the ancient landmarks”.  Ancient landmarks were standing stones set up to mark boundaries.  During a time of war, the Prophet Samuel “took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.” (Book of Samuel 7: 12-13).  The word “ebenezer” means “stone of help” in Hebrew and is referred to in one of my favorite hymns “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (first line of the second stanza): “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I come.” Identifying the important landmarks of our civilization is critical to keeping the peace in any Changing of the Guard.

The first landmark is the knowledge of a Divine Creator. It is the most important landmark of Christianity, one which is the key standing stone from which all other landmarks should be measured.

The Old Testament gives us the Ten Commandments as basic laws to live by, the first three relating to our relationship with God: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”, “Thou shalt not make any graven images (idols)”,  and “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” (Exodus 20:3 – 7).

1 Corinthians 8:6 states, “But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.”

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the First Article of Faith states, “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”

Did you know that 49 out of the 50 state constitution preambles mention a supreme being by one of several names for God?  This includes Alaska: “We the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land, in order to secure and transmit to succeeding generations our heritage of political, civil, and religious liberty within the Union of States, do ordain and establish this constitution for the State of Alaska.”

There are other landmarks too numerous to list but these include faith, hope, charity, courage, compassion, humility, patience, and kindness.

The moral of the Changing of the Guard story is found also found Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”.

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Originally published in the Faith column of The Frontiersman.

Photo credit 1: “Changing of the Guard” Twilight Zone television series, Season 3.

Photo credit: Stones of Stenness