Catching Courage From the Stories of the Saints
This is a season when many cultures celebrate and honor their ancestors. In the church world, we call this All Souls Day and All Saints Day, but the roots go back deeper and traditions with similar themes are present in many, many cultures. In this season, the veil between worlds is extra thin; the boundaries are blurry. We tell stories, we build fires, we prepare foods (I’m counting buying candy for trick-or-treaters under this generous umbrella!), and crucially we remember that we are connected to those who came before just as we are connected to those who will follow.
Where I live in the mountains of Southern Appalachia, the world around me reminds me that we are indeed changing seasons. The trees outside my window astonish me daily with their newly vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows, and I know that within a few weeks these leaves will all be part of the forest floor while nature prepares for winter and deep rest.
This is a time for stories that help us catch courage
An author and pastor I appreciate, Ken Sehested, says that he thinks no liturgical date needs more attention right now than All Saints Day because we need to tell the stories that give us hope and courage:
“Remembrance of those gone before us provides the buoyancy to continue the struggle despite bleak prospects. Such stories perform vivid reminders that (a) we are not the first to encounter hard times, and (b) the assurance that sustenance (beyond our own ingenuity) will be provided. Even more: Telling stories of faithful witness—with faces and names and details—is far and away the most effective means of catching courage and transmitting hope.”
Wow. I rather wish I’d read that before starting to raise funds for the production of Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints because he captured entirely why stories matter so much. This was my experience in researching and writing these profiles, which I began shortly after the 2016 election.
Remembering that others have faced difficult times (really, quite harder times) than I have and have managed to maintain an anchor and a steady witness was enormously hopeful. For me, it was soul-saving. If Bayard Rustin, Wangari Maathai, Thich Nhat Hahn, Valarie Kaur, or Maryam Molkara didn’t give up, then I can keep on keeping on too.
The stories we tell of saints—conventional and unconventional—help us and the children in our lives imagine how things could be.
Ancestor meals
A dear friend who leads a connecting circle that my eldest daughter and I attend is planning a special ancestor meal in a couple of weeks in which we’ll bring dishes that remind us of a particular ancestor or a dish that connects us to our heritage. I’ve already enjoyed asking some questions to family about certain recipes and stories connected to those foods (my spouse had forgotten about his grandma’s special tamale pie that she made every Friday night, but now he’s gotten the recipe from his sister—written in his grandma’s handwriting—and will be making it).
Especially for a modern, somewhat culturally-orphaned white person, connecting more concretely to my heritage is something I’ve been told to do by anti-racism mentors because the myth that (White) Americans are just “Heinz 57 mutts” and don’t have a history prior to colonizing this land is harmful. Knowing the stories of our ancestors is part of the work of knowing our past, and as Mark Charles, an Indigenous man who ran for president, says, we can never have a shared vision for a future if we don’t have a shared memory of the past.
I didn’t grow up celebrating this time of year very much (although our family did occasionally drive a distance away to trick-or-treat, something rather heretical for the community I grew up in—you can see it was a slippery slope!), so having a tangible, food-centric idea for stepping into a ritual for this season felt fun and doable.
Hafiz on death as a gift
Earlier this week in my morning poetry time, which remains a core spiritual practice for me, I read a poem by Hafiz with a perspective that feels really helpful for this season.
Deepening the Wonder
Death is a favor to us,
But our scales have lost their balance.
The impermanence of the body
Should give us great clarity,
Deepening the wonder in our senses and eyes
Of this mysterious existence we share
And are surely just traveling through.
If I were in the Tavern tonight,
Hafiz would call for drinks
And as the Master poured, I would be reminded
That all I know of life and of myself is that
We are just a midair flight of golden wine
Between His Pitcher and His Cup.
If I were in the Tavern tonight,
I would buy freely for everyone in this world
Because our marriage with the Cruel Beauty
Of time and space cannot endure very long.
Death is a favor to us,
But our minds have lost their balance.
The miraculous existence and impermanence of Form
Always makes the illumined ones
Laugh and Sing.
- Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)
I hope to hold onto that perspective from Hafiz that the knowledge of our mortality—so present at this time of year in our rituals—can deepen our wonder at the miraculous existence of today. May we, with the illumined ones he speaks of, remember this and laugh and sing.
Thanks for being here as we catch courage together from the stories of those who have gone before.