Karl

Not far from where we live is Highgate Cemetery.  It is an amazing place for the conglomeration of famous people's corpses that lie there.  It is unusual in being one of very few cemeteries where you pay to visit as a living person; thankfully the admission fee for those expected to walk out again is a lot lower than if you are brought in to stay.

Though he is not at all the only famous person here, for whatever reason Karl Marx has the centre of attention.  His grave is more like a statue from the town square of a country behind the old Iron Curtain.  But whereas many old communist dignitaries have been unceremoniously removed from their Eastern plinths, Karl has been given more dignity in London.  In fact he was moved within the cemetery, but only in order to give him a better position.

Herein is the irony.  For day after dead day, Karl looks across his little lane at several graves with prominent crosses.  As far as history can tell, Karl's main connections with the cross were too early and too late.  Too early in that when he was baptised into the Lutheran church the sign of the cross meant nothing to his infant mind, and too late in Highgate Cemetery when his soul has returned to God who made it.  

In between?  Some historically significant philosophy that is looking somewhat out of date while the cross continues to change the lives of all kinds of people.