“All good things must come to an end.”
If this is a saying you’ve heard before, you might understand what this service is about. Some of you might be thinking of good things that have come to an end, and think of the fun you had at Beggars Night or a Halloween party this week. Some of you have had birthdays, and weddings, and anniversaries, and now the party’s over. Some of you may have had friends that have moved away, or friends you don’t talk to anymore, or loved ones that have died. All good things that have come to an end.
After the party’s over, after the good things have come to an end, it can be hard not to miss the good times. It can be easy to wish things were the way they used to be, that the fun would never end. It’s natural and healthy to feel sad that things have ended. We’ll all feel said in different ways, and for different lengths of time.
But when we spend all of our time wishing things were the way they used to be, we miss out on what’s happening around us. We can miss out on what’s changed, or on what’s new. We can lose sight of how we are better people because of the good things – good people, good experiences – that are no longer with us.
Today, we will be reflecting on the Pagan holiday of Samhain, or All Hallows. Like several other festivals at this time of year, the people who celebrate remember people who have died, who they love and honor. It is a day to celebrate the family members and people they admire who have been important in their lives. It is a day to honor and celebrate how these people have helped shape us into the people we are today. While death and loss are often sad and painful, this is not a day of mourning, but of celebration. We remember their lives, the impact they had on us, and how we are better people because they were in our life.
Thank you for being here with us today.
A few weeks ago, my mother’s sister, my oldest aunt, passed away quickly and unexpectedly. Two weeks ago, she would have been 80 years old. When I told a friend this had happened, she invited me to come over to her apartment in case I needed some company. I went over, and we talked about how our weeks had been, what books we had read or shows we had watched, and we talked about grief and how we process it. I said that I expected my grief would come and go, unexpectedly at times. This is how it has felt with many of the people I know who have died. I also said that understanding death as a natural part of life helps ground me in the face of loss and grief.
This understanding is an essential part of how I navigate death. The people who have come before me have led me to this moment, and have shaped how I move through this world. In good ways, and in painful ones. Paying attention to this helps keep me present. It helps me see my own interconnectedness to the rest of the world and the people around me. Honoring who and what has lived before us can help cultivate this perspective. This is the sermon I have to offer you today. I’m not offering a prescription to cure grief or loss, but a perspective that may help us adjust our experiences.
Studying and practicing Paganism have certainly helped me cultivate this approach toward death. I don’t think it’s an essential ingredient, but it has been an important one for me. Many witches and Pagans hold that life and death are not discrete qualities of being, but are interrelated experiences. You plant the seed, you nurture the plant, you harvest the grain, you plant the seed. The cycle spirals on and on, repeating itself, both new and familiar with each revolution. In traditions that use the Wiccan Wheel of the Year for their liturgical calendar, people talk about Samhain as the third of the harvest festivals, preceded by Lammas and the Autumn Equinox. It’s the last chance to reflect on what we’ve brought into existence in the last year, and begin anticipating and preparing for the year to come.
For many, a central component of this is honoring and communicating with our ancestors. As we reflect on the natural world “dying,” going into hibernation to prepare for new emergence, we reflect on the many cycles of living and dying that have brought us to this moment. Living things die and consequently new things emerge. These new emerging things are tied to previous lives. We hear this sentiment in the words of Nancy Wood in our second reading1.
Each death I encounter makes more sense placed in the context of life’s cycles. Although each death is new and unique, my approach to death is not – I’ve cultivated it for much of my life now. As a child and teenager my family and I helped serve at many funeral Masses in my home parish. Over the years I’ve experienced the death of cousins, aunts, grandparents, great-aunts and uncles. People who were old and young; close to me and further removed; deaths that were both anticipated and unexpected. But no death has felt like a loss so much as a transformation. I’ve never felt death terminating a relationship so much as changing the way I approach the relationship. Although the person in question is no longer physically alive, I am, and the people they knew are, and those of us who are still alive are forever changed because of our relationship. We carry those changes forward in our lives, consciously or not. As Ysaye Barnwell writes in our centering hymn,
“The Dead are not under the earth… they are in the wailing child, they are with us in our homes, they are with us in this crowd2.”
In a more abstract way, I think this is true of anyone we encounter who is no-longer physically present in our lives. But that might be a reflection for a different time. When I count my ancestors – the persons and beings that have shaped my life – I count grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins: the people who raised me and their relatives. But I also count my advising professor from college, who has shaped how I understand being Pagan and being a scholar of religion. I count some of the Catholic saints as my ancestors – who my own ancestors prayed to for intercessions, and who I have honored and venerated alongside gods and familial ancestors alike. And I consider the land I’ve lived on and grew up in to be an ancestor as well. All of these persons and beings have molded me into this version of a person before you now, and I exist as their legacy.
So now I have two questions for you as we prepare to depart. Who are your ancestors? Who are the people, places, and things that have helped shape you today? And how will you honor and remember that change? You might honor them in a formal or ritualistic way, or you might not. In an article written earlier this month, John Beckett gives us some insight into the breadth of forms honoring our ancestors can take:
“Ancestor veneration is…a very intuitive practice – so intuitive that people of all religions do it, even if they don’t considerate a religious thing. Go into the homes of your most conservative Christian friends. You’ll see pictures of grandma and grandpa on the wall. Maybe a wedding photo, maybe a picture in a military uniform. You’ll see old watches, pens, tools – things that have a tangible connection to a long-passed relatives. Your Christian friends wouldn’t call these places shrines, but that’s what they are. They’re places of honor, even if no one ever sets a glass of wine in front of them as an offering3.”
In a day-to-day way, I don’t have a ritualized way of honoring my ancestors. But I honor them in other ways. I hang pictures of my ancestors and icons of saints on my walls. And every day I see them and remember how we’re connected, and how that’s changed me. I honor my grandmother every time I bake a pie. I honor my grandfather when I brew one of his wine recipes. For many of them anyway, that feels closest to what they would have wanted. To be remembered in a daily, living way. And then during special observances, like All Hallows, I honor them with offerings in ritual.
You may be honoring your ancestors in a way like this already. So in this season of death and rebirth, I encourage you to find connection in the people and places that have willed you into existence. Dust off your grandparents’ wedding photo. Cook the meal that reminds you of your friend. Walk in the woods and the hills near where you grew up. Pour out an offering on your shrine if that feels right. Though these people and places might not be physically present anymore, take up all that remains and know how much it’s shaped you.
1. Nancy Wood, in Life Prayers: 365 Prayers, Blessings, and Affirmations to Celebrate the Human Journey From Around the World, ed. Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 330.
2. Ysaÿe Barnwell, “Breaths,” in Singing the Journey: A Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition, ed. Unitarian Universalist Association (Boston, MA: Unitarian Universalist Association, 2005), #1001
3. John Beckett, “Ancestor Work”, Patheos: Under the Ancient Oaks, April 14, 2021, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2021/04/ancestor-work.html