CALL TO WORSHIP
Today, we welcome the great cloud of witnesses,
Our spiritual ancestors, the founders of our faith and our community, Those who broke new ground
Opening pathways for love and liberation.
Today, we welcome all our relations,
Including the spirits of our kin and kindred spirits gone before, Those whose lives paved a way
That twisted and turned to become our journey.
Today, we welcome grief and sorrow, Elation and celebration.
We have prepared tables for their arrival.
Where the light of loss comingles with the light of life.
So, come beloveds to our feast of all souls,
No need to be called a saint or a sinner to be welcomed here. There is a place for everyone who was, is, and ever will be to sit beside one another and keep good company.
– Alison Miller –
HOMILY: “Breathe of Our Ancestors” by Rev. Alison Miller
Every year the trees provide a poignant reminder that life and death each have their season. As the leaves turn shades of yellow and crimson, orange and purple and brown, we become deeply conscious of two things. First, each of us has the chance to live in unique, changing, and colorful ways.
How shall we seize our time to reflect the hope and possibility in the fresh green leafy season of our youth? And, if we are not to be plucked too soon from the tree of life – how shall we seize our time to reflect the myriad possibilities that can color our lives as we age?
Second, as we watch leaves twirl and dance on their final journey to the ground, we know instinctively that it is never too late to seize one moment of this living. That is, until we exhale our final breath.
We take comfort in knowing that while one life has ended, other lives are just beginning, and so it is with the cycle of life, of trees, of all beings.
We human beings are so very fortunate, that in some very concrete ways our lives continue to matter long after we are gone. The leaves cannot testify to the meaning of life – or, at least they cannot until we give voice to that truth – which we do, as the world’s storytellers.
Yes, our lives matter beyond the moment of our last breath, in part, because of days like today – where we are honoring those who have gone before – in this week of All Hallows Eve, Samhain, El Día de Los Muertos, and All Souls Day.
Today, we are invited to dwell less on whether our loved ones were plucked from the tree too soon, and more on how the color and quality of their love added to the landscape of our earth and sky.
By the way, I do not gloss over the challenge of such early losses in this world. My father was only middle-aged when he passed at what should have been a strong green phase of life. And, I spent quite a bit of my youth in a children’s cancer ward, where too many lovely leaves were plucked hardly out of the season of buds.
But, as terrible as those death were and are for any who experience them – whether the leaves were struck by sickness or by violence or by some accident of nature or humanity – it still remains true that what will be remembered is not how long, but rather how they lived. What will be remembered is their unique expression of color and shape, and how it contributed to the canvas of life, as well as how they loved, and how they were willing to give away love and receive it – through storms and sunshine, through winds and stillness. What is remembered is how they moved with the rhythms of life, and how they touched the beings with whom they came into contact.
And, yet, this truth of trees so often eludes us. For it is not easy to accept that life ends in death (as Freud reminds us in the Poet’s Requiem). We feel this keenly during a pandemic. Our global human family has lost 6.6 million beloveds, we in the United States have lost over 1 million, and we in Oregon have lost nearly 9,000 neighbors. I moved here from area of the epicenter of the pandemic, NY city and the surrounding suburbs, and I can see the faces of beloved former congregants and their immediate family members who are amidst these numbers.
I am also aware, though, that 10,000 babies are born every day in the US and over 385,000 babies are born in the world on daily basis. This is the crux of what it means to be human. Like the marigolds on the ofrenda, a Day of the Dead altar, like the rose we hand our children in dedication, naming, and blessing ceremonies – we are also full of life and beauty and oh, so fragile.
Each day is precious. Each day here in this community someone experiences a loss and someone experiences a joy – sometimes a loss connected to death and sometimes a joy connected to birth. We were made for joy and woe. And, sometimes like today, as our children parade around in costumes in their religious education classes, as we simultaneously celebrate our dead, and as we mourn the lives cut short by a pandemic – we experience both.
It was thirty-four years ago this week, that I as a ninth grader took my father to the hospital with chest pain and called my mother to come meet us there. Three days later, he went to sleep forever. I howled with grief. That same day was my brother’s thirteenth birthday. I could feel both in that moment – a deep sadness that life would never be the same without my dad and desire to celebrate my brother. A friend, a peer group leader, helped me get to the supermarket and buy a cake and candles, and when we returned, we sang, “Happy Birthday!” Life and death hanging in the balance on the same day, like they do every single day.
And yet, this is a time we testify to the miracle. That life continues in spite of death. That although my son never met my father, he knows him through stories, and through me and who I am because of how my father helped shaped me to be. That our ancestors on the whole survived more often than died even in the harshest of winters when food was scarce is a miracle.
Everyone here knows it – we have lost, or will all lose, people and pets and plants that we have loved and cared for – friends and family members that we have loved and have loved us in return and who have inspired us to seize our own moment to dance on the breezes and the breath of life while we can.
Fortunately, life generally does happen in cycles. What that means is that most of us can count on outliving our grandparents and parents. This is one reason why it is so hard when death comes out of season… And, my heart aches for the families of the 150 or so dead in Seoul, Korea yesterday from a stampede outside a Halloween party, many of them only in their 20s… Yes, it is so difficult when a death comes out of season. Yet, it is
a reminder that life is precious, and we don’t know whether we will have 100, or 75, or 50, or 25 or fewer years. Yet, what we do know is that in our lives, whether brief or long, we can touch the world with a color and splendor that is our very own, quite unique in all the world, quite unique among the generations. This is the great gift.
If we do that, whenever we take our final journey back to mother earth, then our family and friends will gather just for us and also again on anniversaries like this one – to share just how we did it. They will light candles and look at mementos and celebrate their connection to us and how our unique story, shape, color and way of moving affected the landscape of their lives.
These people who we love will never actually be without us, and we will not be without them. For as long as they live, they will carry our story, the very heart of who we are, with them at all times. If we are especially lucky, they may even transmit the story down to their children and grandchildren (or another’s child or grandchild.) Even after our story is forgotten – the quality and depth of our love has the possibility to move forward through the generations. Ultimately, it is only love which passes eternally from one generation to the next. The love we give away is what can never be plucked and continuously anchors us to the tree of life.
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CLOSING PRAYER (Following the Litany of Names)
Spirit of Life,
Move in us and through us and among us and across the generations, May the music and the names we have offered,
Consecrate our sanctuary of memory and hope.
And those who are gone but not named who dwell in the silence between the notes,
… These have many names, losses from prior years whether at a ripe old age or as young as before a child could breathe on its own, trauma that transmits across the generations, and more…
May these beloveds – named and unnamed – all of them – continue to nurture our dreams
and inspire us to live more fully
in whatever number of days ahead are still ours to claim
May we remember the past, dwell in the present,
and move in our own season of life towards love and creativity, towards healing and wholeness.
May it be so. Amen. Blessed Be.
Topics: Commitment