It’s hard to look outside during the fall and not understand why so many cultures around the world have celebrations remembering the dead, or at least dealing with death. Though this year might be an exception as Halloween is supposed to get up to 80 degrees here in Baltimore. Usually though there is a chill in the air the trees are turning colors and losing their leaves, and the crops have mostly been harvested so the fields lay barren. So, it makes sense that in the span of one week we have at least three celebrations about death in Halloween, All Saints, and Dia De Los Muertos. I also find it fascinating the different ways each culture decides to handle the death or dead in their celebrations. Some invite the dead or at least their ancestors closer, some are simpler and just remember those who have come before and shaped how we are now, and other still are more putting death back where it came from (so help me, so help me!)[1].
In many ways these celebrations of death in general mimic the ways we respond to death when it enters our lives. I’ve led and been part of funerals where it’s just one big party that while having grief present is also a celebration of all that the deceased was. Others are full of wailing and gnashing of teeth as when someone dies tragically or unexpectedly, and the grief can be overwhelming. Then there are the ones that are more complicated where the person who has passed had complex or bad relationships with those they’ve left behind and they might not feel much in the way of grief.
Death both near and far is a complex thing, and this Sunday when we celebrate All Saints we will remember all those who have come before while also holding true to the fact that someday Jesus will roll away the stone in front of all of our graves and tell us to come out.
How do you make sense of death? How does that effect the way you make sense of the new life that is to come?
[1] See Monsters Inc. “Put That Thing Back Where it Came from or so Help Me” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqaHBfBSSuc&ab_channel=Pixar
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