A Time for Repair
My friend Lisa’s dad died this week just past. “It was peaceful,” she said. “We’re relieved for him. And sad...”
I remember well that mingled relief and sadness when my own dad died many years ago. Dad had already been on my mind before I got Lisa’s text. He loved this first Sunday in November. In his vocabulary and worldview, the end of Daylight Saving Time marked a return to God’s Time. I know (and he did, too, intellectually) that Standard Time, to which we returned in the early hours of this morning, is as much a human construct as Daylight Saving Time. As a theologian, I believe that all time is God’s Time. So, while I share Dad’s fondness for this time of year, my affection for the Sunday closest to the first of November has more to do with this being a sacred time.
The last days of October, first days of November are recognized in many Latin American cultures, pre-Christian European cultures, and Christianity as a time to remember, honor, even celebrate those we love who have died. Some say the veil between the living and the dead is thin at this season, and communication is possible between those who dwell in one realm and those who dwell in the other.
In this room and among those worshiping on YouTube Live, we probably have a couple dozen different beliefs about death and life after death and about whether or not, in the words of Birago Diop, adapted by Sweet Honey in the Rock, “those who have died have never, never left… the dead have a pact with the living.” I myself don’t know one way or the other about the thinness of the veil between the realms at this particular time. But I do know this about holy times and holidays: they exist, at least in part, to give us a discrete, culturally crafted and defined segments of time in which to explore, honor, celebrate, and bless experiences and emotions that occur or may be present at any time of the year but which also may be too overwhelming for us to enter into fully on any given Thursday afternoon or Monday midnight.
People we know, cherish, and love die when they die. In March and August and May. We hold funerals and memorial services, write obituaries, send cards, mourn when the deaths come to pass. And the, forever after, moments of grief, anger, sadness, relief, bittersweet memory drop into our days and nights, at predictable and random times–but we can’t always give those emotions free rein. Neither can we be entirely successful at summoning them on demand, of course, so that when the anniversaries of deaths or the birthdays of the dead roll around we’re sad or relieved or bittersweet on cue. Nevertheless, or because of this truth, in their wisdom, as I’ve just said, many cultures offer these autumn days as a season to pay attention to, to invite in, the memories and the emotions that might elude us or swamp us other times a year. Sometimes, not always but sometimes, communal observances, with sounds, symbols, rituals and companionship, draw our hearts open more easily than private practices.
In just a moment I’ll invite you up to light a candle and speak the names of your beloved dead, recent or long since. We don’t have time to hear their story but we do want to hear their names spoken in your loving voices. Rexannawill light the first two candles. One for Helen Lynah, a long time member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah, who died July 5, 2024. One for Phillippa Paddison, also a long time member of our congregation, who died October 2, 2024. The families of both these cherished women decided to mark their deaths with private graveside ceremonies. We respect these as the right decisions for those families. Yet as a community we mourn the loss of Helen and of Phillippa, and we honor their role in our congregation in our lives by speaking their names aloud here this morning.
This ritual of candle lighting and naming is part of this morning’s sermon. The sermon will continue in a more familiar format after everyone who wishes to do so has lit a candle. If you’re worshiping at home, I hope you’ll light a candle where you are, and we’ll light a candle at the end for all the candles we can’t see here in this space.
Please come forward as you are moved to do so, to light candles and speak the names of beloved now departed. And please do use the microphone so allow those worshiping remotely to hear you.
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Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace."
I said a few minutes ago that one of the reasons for holidays and holy times is to give us a container in space and time for emotions and experiences that are often too big for ordinary days and time. Another reason for holidays and holy times is to offer us concerted practice of rituals and other ways of engaging our feelings and our spirits, so when joy (which isn’t limited to Christmas or Easter) or liberation (which isn’t limited to Juneteenth or Passover) or gratitude (which isn’t limited to Thanksgiving) arise, our spiritual and emotional muscles are in good shape and ready to respond.
In most memorial services I reflect on unfinished business, saying something like:
"Death leaves things unfinished. Jack and Jill and Jovan have unfinished business with Rupert–the trip they planned to the old country; the family charitable foundation still not quite off the ground. You each have your own unfinished business with him. Books you will now never get to discuss. The apology never accepted, the forgiveness never offered. Laughs you didn’t get to share. Words of love said but not often enough. Friends and lovers, spouses and children and grandchildren and you’ll never get to introduce to him. Things you thought you had more time for.
Death comes into our lives with no grand meaning to ease the pain. Rupert died only because the human body is as frail as it is resilient, and the art and science of medicine are as limited as they are wondrous. Rupert didn’t die because God had better plans for him or needed him in heaven or wanted to teach us something. Nevertheless, Rupert’s death brings the reminder that we have unfinished business with everyone we love. Words to speak. Risks to take. Truths to tell. Favors to grant. Walks and meals and quiet hours. Questions to ask. Songs to sing and dances to dance. Reconciliations to forge. Now is the time. Rupert has died; we yet live. So, let us live fully, gratefully, playfully, prayerfully, joyfully. Live."
I believe this is a good and important reminder, and I will continue to include it in memorial services. But those occasions find us fraught with grief or frozen with the need to get through the day, and I fear the invitation to attend to unfinished business often goes unabsorbed. These autumn days, so holy in so many faith traditions, offer us a space and time for practicing the repair that can come through attending to unfinished business. In the hours that come, as memories of the ones you named float in and out of your consciousness, consider the repair you wish you’d undertaken while they were still alive, and then allow your thoughts to turn to the repair that needn’t be left unfinished. Many, though not all, Unitarian Universalists would say that the concepts of the thinning of the veil and the opportunity for communication between the living and the dead, are comforting metaphors, perhaps but nothing more. What is certain, however, is that this season, if we choose to make the metaphor and the poetry work for us, can be a time for a deliberate thinning of veils that obscure interaction and communication between living individuals, between living communities.
What if, even in this season of All Saints and All Souls and Dia de los Muertos, our lot lies with the living? How then shall we practice repair? Amen
