Rev. Joseph Boyd There is a great power this time of year. The time when the veil is thin, when the worlds of the past and the present, the ones who have passed and ones who are still here, merge. In multiple cultures around the world, this time of year is very special. It is a time when communication with the dead is possible. A time we can say “I remember you,” “I miss you,” “I love you.” A time when we can sense all the myriad ways that our loved ones who have passed are still here with us. There are different and distinct traditions that honor this natural turning point – this turning of late Autumn into Winter. Halloween, the popular holiday in the United States, didn’t become popular until the 1930’s. Before then, there was great wariness about any ritual that would honor the dead, with our Puritan ancestors in New England forbidding it. It wasn’t until the mass migration of Scots and Irish during the twentieth century, that Halloween entered mainstream society in America. A combination of Samhain (Saw-win), a Celtic pagan holiday, and All Hallows Eve, a Christian holiday to honor the saints who have passed, came to enter mainstream culture. The dominant feeling of this holiday came to be fear, and thrills that came from fear. The origin of dressing up for Halloween came from the European belief that spirits during this time of year were able to seek vengeance on the living, and thus one disguised their appearance so that they wouldn’t be found by them. Over the course of time this tradition developed with those in poverty going door to door asking the rich for treats, soul cakes, in exchange for prayers wishing the household well. If the rich refused to give treats, children were empowered to seek vengeance. In a sense, being poor was akin to being part of the dead: a spirit, an apparition, someone barely noticed in society. Someone who was scarcely recognized as a person. Children from poverty would scour all the richest neighborhoods, seeking their treats one day a year.
Dia De Los Muertos, an important holiday in Youngstown, and throughout the United States, especially in Texas and Southern California is not the same as Halloween. It originated in Mexico. It is not necessarily an honoring of the saints, and it is not a time to seek or avoid vengeance. It is not necessarily a time to get treats from the rich. It is not sober, scary, or serious. It is joyful. It is a celebration. What is there to celebrate we might ask? Communication, connection. It is a joyful celebration when families gather to bring to life all those who have died: bringing them to life through funny stories, favorite foods and drinks, memories. It is a celebration of life, a time to recognize that even after we die we get a whole other life that awaits us through the stories and memories of loved ones. It is the recognition that we are all skeletons underneath this veneer of skin and muscle. All of us, skeletons. Black, white, brown – all the things we tear ourselves over about in our society, all the appearances that ultimately fall away, closer at hand than we think. We are all skeletons underneath, we are all going to die, we all, without exception, will pass through the veil of this life into a mystery.
I love this time of year because it is a time of mystery. Late autumn-to the Winter Solstice is my favorite time of year. The weather gets colder, basic necessities become precious: food, light, friendship. Our imaginations are let loose, and stories loom large. A small flicker of a candle becomes akin to a bonfire. This time of year the veil is thin between what we believe our world to be, what we think it is to be alive, and what is waiting for us beyond this life. I’ve learned over time not just to welcome, but revel in this mystery. I’ve learned that communication with those who have passed on is actually the norm. It is not strange or peculiar. I’ve counseled dozens who attest that they still communicate with the dearly departed, and that they sense the dearly departed, their loved ones, answer back. There is a two-way communication. In my personal life, I attest to this. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I sense some palpable connection with good friends and family members who have passed beyond this earthly realm. Perhaps it is all in my head, but the sense remains, that relationship and communication do not end at death. I’ve learned to embrace this.
There is a mystery that lies at the heart of our lives, and I don’t pretend to understand it. I don’t understand what happens when we pass through the veil of this earthly realm, but I know this side of the veil is equally mysterious, wild, and unlikely. I remain open to possibilities. In each of these traditions this time of year, there is some kind of offering to the dead. The living person offers something for and on behalf of the dearly departed, typically a food or drink. In my college class we recently studied Shintoism, and the practice of setting up ancestral shrines, places where families gather to make some offering to those who have passed. I think this is a deep and beautiful practice. It is wise to make an offering to the dead. I recommend we all do this, this year. I know many of us as Westerners are wary of ritual, or anything that seems superstitious, or anything that seems beyond the rational. So I’ll make it simple and plain. We must make an offering to the dead. It doesn’t need to be a shrine, but our actions today must include in it some offering, some way to honor those who have died. I’ve been thinking of all the hundreds of thousands of people who have died from Covid-19, and how our actions today might honor them, how we might through our living make a living offering to their lives, their hopes, their loved ones. On a personal level, I think it is appropriate we make an offering to our loved ones, our friends, our parents and ancestors who have passed. For all we know our living is making an offering to them right now, and we can recognize it.
I descend from at least three generations of religious leaders: my grandfather, my father, and myself. In a very true way, this sermon is an offering to them: an offering of their impact and presence on my life that has survived their death. They’re giving this sermon too. Not just me. That’s biologically and spiritually true. Their intention to lead and inspire moves through my skeleton, my ligaments, my lungs, and mouth, but it does not belong to me alone: it’s the spirit of my ancestors. Our actions today can honor the hundreds of thousands who have died from Covid-19, actions of kindness, forgiveness, patience, and care for one another. These are the greatest offerings. There are certain people in our lives who we love dearly, people who remain with us always, even after death. I have good friends who have died, my father, close cousins, now congregants who I love who have passed beyond the veil: all of them are palpable presences in my life. I don’t pretend to understand this, but I don’t deny it.
This time of year reminds me that I get the chance to make an offering, to show that their life mattered to me, and that I hope to continue some part of their spirit through my efforts. It is very special to be put in this position. Something I’ve learned over the years is that as much as we seek to be connected to our loved ones who passed, our loved ones need us, those of us alive in this earthly realm. It is a two way street. They need us.
I have no doubt that the dead communicate to us, and that we get to choose our response. Sometimes the offering we can make is to fill in the gaps for what the dead have left us with. I see this in my own family. My parents gave me certain affections and affirmation that they could not receive from their parents. That was their offering, a way to extend the love they received, to be more, broader, and deeper. I see now the way they honored their parents, by not repeating their mistakes, and extending what they were given. That is a wonderful offering. We can extend what the ghosts of the past have left to us: we can broaden it and deepen it.
I think of the ancestors in Unitarian Universalism: all the brave women and men, people who have made this faith and this church possible for us. I think of what it means to honor them, to make an offering this time of year. And my answer to that is to go further than they ever imagined, to open up this faith to every living soul, alive and dead. It is a belief in multiple religions that being lost is not reserved to the living. The dead too can be lost, and not know who they are or where they are. Our offering can be on behalf of them too: to make this place an arrival for the human spirit, a homecoming, a place of rest and community. In remembering that we are all fundamentally skeletons underneath, we might be able to shirk some of the pettiness of this era, and allow justice to become common sense. This is a place for all people, all ancestors, all lineages. This is the attitude we need, to make a true offering this time of year. We have the power as the living to do what the dead cannot.
The dead may have power according to tradition during this very brief window when the veil is thin, and we can use that power to make an offering for all of us: those who have died, and those who are still alive today. We can make an offering that honors the sacrifice and hopes of the dearly departed, and recommit ourselves to living in accord with charity, kindness, and thanksgiving. We can acknowledge how the dead have set our course and showed us new vistas, showing what it really means to be alive in a community. It is important we make an offering this year, and offer our actions on behalf of the dead. You can make this offering in a ritual: offering a meal, a drink, a favorite song of the dearly departed. You can participate in something they enjoyed: a favorite movie, a favorite memory, a favorite pastime. Or you can do what must also be done in this era: honor the many who have died with your care and actions today: your decision to honor the dead with your actions, by honoring the unity of all existence, the dreams that endure, even after death. This is a writing from a Unitarian Universalist Minister, Rev. Kathleen McTigue: They Are With Us Still:
In the struggles we choose for ourselves,
in the ways we move forward in our lives
and bring our world forward with us,
It is right to remember the names of those
who gave us strength in this choice of living.
It is right to name the power of hard lives well-lived.
We share a history with those lives.
We belong to the same motion.
They too were strengthened by what had gone before.
They too were drawn on by the vision of what might come to be.
Those who lived before us,
who struggled for justice and suffered injustice before us,
have not melted into the dust,
and have not disappeared.
They are with us still.
The lives they lived hold us steady.
Their words remind us and call us back to ourselves.
Their courage and love evoke our own.
We, the living, carry them with us:
we are their voices, their hands and their hearts.
