|
Friends,
Do you notice how tense we are these days? How easily angst takes over and we feel like we are drifting aimlessly?
As we are making important political decisions, we carry our hopes and aspirations for our shared future, as well as apprehensions about threats to our democracy. We worry about the state of our world, the needs of our neighbors near and far. What will it take to continue to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God?
This week we remember our saints who have gone before us, who shaped us as individuals and as a community into the people we are today. They taught us about resilience and hope in the face of challenging moments in life.
I remember my two grandmothers, Rozsi and Bözsi. These two women navigated the hardships of World War II caring for little ones alone, not knowing whether their husbands will ever return from the war. They provided comfort, stability and hope not only to their families, but also their neighbors, holding fast to the One who they knew walks with us through thick and thin. I remember my ethics professor from seminary The Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, who was the first Black woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1974. She always reminded her women students... all her students from minoritized backgrounds that we have a voice that matters; that all our voices are needed in building up the Beloved Community.
Who do you remember? Whose life and legacy still inspires you and gives you courage in these days? I hope you join me this week and take time to give thanks for all our saints who shaped us with their life and faith. We take comfort that they now rest eternally in the presence of our God.
If you will join us for worship in person this Sunday, I invite you to bring photos of your saints that you would like to honor. You will also have the opportunity to write their names on prayer cards which we will place on the communion table - a foretaste of the great feast of all saints gathered into God's eternal presence.
May our remembrance of these saints anchor us in God's love and sustaining power through November 5th and beyond so that we keep on walking in God's light.
~~~
Today we are drawn into remembrance.
The complexity of love and loss both warms our hearts and chills our bones.
Invisible connections are revealed
just as the light of the sun illuminates the lines of a web,
we see that our lives are connected to those who are no longer here.
Blessed are we who acknowledge the impressions made by those
who’ve passed a child’s nose, a joke carried on,
a chair left in our name, a story that we now tell.
Blessed are you who have learned to make sense of a world
that doesn’t make sense without them.
And blessed are you with grief present still
who carry the weight of surviving a loved one,
of keeping the memories and sharing the stories.
O God, you alone know the whole of it.
You know their sufferings, their joys,
their hopes, their winding paths and every movement of their souls.
Restore our souls, even as you receive theirs. welcome them in
with the kind of embrace we wish we could give them.
Blessed is the time they were given and the time you now have.
whether in life or in death, love is there.
~ by Kate Bowler, A blessing for the day we mourn our dead
| 
