Falling Leaves

For some reason, or maybe for no reason at all, this autumn has been a time when people within and close to our congregation has been departing this life. I have performed seven memorial services since the latter part of August. Although one was for someone who had not been going to church but had a family member who had been to a service at our church and liked it, and another was for someone who had once attended our congregation and meant to get involved but never did, the others were for people we knew much better. We had another death just before Thanksgiving, but the family is waiting for a memorial service until after the holidays. And with these fall memorials this year has come the resonance of those from the year just past and from fall deaths of last year and the year before and the year before that.

It's a lot of loss for a relatively small congregation, coming bunched up like this. Yet at the same time, we had the most productive holiday fair ever, and with the coming of cool weather in November, we have had healthy attendance on Sundays. I'm thinking the release of all that sadness, not just for these losses, but for the many losses perhaps not adequately mourned some time in the past -- I'm thinking the release of that sadness may have released some new energy we didn't know we had. Maybe it's true that the place of sadness within the heart lies very close to the place of joyous energy, so when you touch the place of sadness with love and care, you also nourish the energy of joy.

As the difficult season of holidays comes upon us, I wish everyone courage to touch the place of sadness with love and care, rather than simply to pretend to be happy.