Ephesians 1: 11-23 and Luke 6
“Our sense of disconnection is only an illusion. Nothing human can stop the flow of divine love; we cannot undo the eternal pattern even by our worst sin.”
- Richard Rohr
This week, we moved through Halloween, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. This week, I have been thinking especially of those who have lost beloved ones since this time last year.
And I am thinking of those who have carried grief for a long time.
I am grateful that the calendar provides these days to do what so many of us do throughout the year—to remember beloved ones who are no longer here but who somehow are with us still.
Also, Pastor Collette Broady Grund writes insightfully about the complicated grief that comes with loving people who have hurt us. Given that people are both sinners and saints—all of us—and the ways that our memories carry that whole complicated mix. Pastor Collette writes:
It seems appropriate then that All Saints follows so closely on the heels of Reformation Day in my Lutheran tradition, for one of the hallmarks of Lutheranism is paradox. “Simul iustis et peccatur” Luther said, which is just Latin for Saint and Sinner at the same time.
Those two realities are equally true, even though they seem opposite, and our traditional All Saints’ celebrations don’t make much space for the sinner parts of our memories. Neither do our funeral rituals, or the way we generally sanctify those who have died and only talk publicly about their good qualities. “You should never speak ill of the dead,” right?!
Wrong. Not that we speak ill of the saints who have surrounded and supported us, but we simply speak honestly, reminding ourselves that no one of us is wholly a saint. Just as no one of us is wholly a sinner. We are all both, and God through Jesus makes space for that, even if [others do] not.
In these sacred days, as we grieve those who hurt us or made life difficult in ways that we continue to carry, may we know how God the healer continues today to do God’s transformational work. God continues to bless those who are poor, who are hungry, who weep & mourn, who experience hate.
God continues to transform our difficult times into ones filled with laughter and feasting, and we can know that what lies ahead are days of rejoicing together and leaping for joy.
In these days, as we grieve and celebrate our beloved dead, may we know how they endure with us, holding our hearts and encompassing us with a fierce and stubborn love that persists across time and distance. May that love help light our way in the life that is continuing to unfold for us. - Words from Jan Richardson
“We live in a world saturated with the love and intentionality of an ever-present God, and we are not alone.” - Words adapted from Barbara Holmes, “God in Thin Places,”
CONSPIRE 2021 (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2021),
ENDURING BLESSING
—Jan Richardson from her book, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief
What I really want to tell you
is to just lay this blessing
on your forehead,
on your heart;
let it rest
in the palm of your hand,
because there is hardly anything
this blessing could say,
any word it could offer
to fill the hollow.
Let this blessing
work its way
into you
with its lines
that hold nearly
unspeakable lament.
Let this blessing
settle into you
with its hope
more ancient
than knowing.
Hear how this blessing
has not come alone—
how it echoes with
the voices of those
who accompany you,
who attend you in every moment,
who continually whisper
this blessing to you.
Hear how they
do not cease
to walk with you,
even when the dark
is deepest.
Hear how they
encompass you always—
breathing this blessing to you,
bearing this blessing to you
still.
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