"Sermon for Dia de Los Muertos"

READINGS :

Two readings that take different approaches to the experience of grief.

"Lament"

Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats
I'll make you little jackets;
I'll make you little trousers
From his old pants.
There'll be in his pockets
Things he used to put there,
Keys and pennies
Covered with tobacco;
Dan shall have the pennies
To save in his bank;
Anne shall have the keys
To make a pretty noise with.
Life must go on,
And the dead be forgotten,
Life must go on,
Though good men die;
Anne, eat your breakfast;
Dan, take your medicine;
Life must go on,
I forget just why.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

"May 1915"

Let us remember Spring will come again
To the scorched, blackened woods, where the
wounded trees
Wait, with their old wise patience for the
heavenly rain,
Sure of the sky: sure of the sea to send its healing breeze,
Sure of the sun. And even as to these
Surely the Spring, when God shall please,
Will come again like a divine surprise
To those who sit today with their great Dead, hands in
their hands, eyes in their eyes,
At one with love, at one with Grief: blind to the scattered
things and changing skies.

Charlotte Mew

SERMON:

"Life must go on," writes Edna St. Vincent Millay in the widow's lament. "I forget just why." A young mother ruefully assesses what she will do with her dead husband's things: make little jackets out of his big one; give his keys and pennies to the children. She's distracted and sad, grieving deeply. But she has a family. And life must go on whether she is ready or not.

We all know how immediate and consuming the experience of grief can be. For a while - sometimes a long while, we feel nothing but the pain of loss, the void that is all that remains after someone we love has died. Though life must go on, we are not thinking much about the future. Only time can give us back the future.

Acute grief appears almost inert, folded in upon itself. It is not easy to imagine how grief can be a creative process. Yet it is.

Today is El Dia de los Muertos - the Day of the Dead - a Mexican observance that turns grief into a celebration. Loved ones are invited back to earth to enjoy their favorite foods with the living. This tradition cultivates familiarity with death: the skeleton images are humorous and playful; there is nothing morbid or scary about them. The dead may be gone but when they come back, we have a party.

As colorful and appealing as the Day of the Dead is, it is not the only observance that makes a celebration out of death. When we returned from our trip to Bali, I couldn't wait to tell you about the cremation we attended. Balinese funerals go on for days, culminating in a procession in which everyone – relatives, neighbors, even tourists – accompanies the body down to the beach to be burned. It is not a sad time; actually, the procession reminded me of a Fourth of July Parade: music, vendors, children running alongside the mourners. And I remember visiting a cemetery in a small town on the island of Capri in early spring. Devout Italian Catholics there tend amazing gardens on their family graves. Come Easter week, everyone in town is in the cemetery, enjoying the flowers and the warm sunshine, communing with each other and the dead.

Life sometimes "goes on" in any number of creative and joyful ways after death. Religious rituals channel this impulse in old and carefully cultivated practices. Such rituals express a truth that deserves to be understood and appreciated for what it is. Out of death comes more life.

Grief can be a creative experience, stimulating growth and opening us to new ways of being in the world. Life goes on, even though there are times everyone forgets just why. But then life helps us to remember.

"Spring will come again, "writes Charlotte Mew. Spring "will come again like a divine surprise to those who sit today with their great Dead, hands in their hands, eyes in their eyes, at one with love, at one with Grief," but not for too long. The skies change, the sea sends its breeze, the rain comes, the scorched and blackened woods will heal.

It's an apt image after a week of fires and the anguish that has come with them. It's also a comforting thought for those who feel the devastation of any loss. Time brings change. Healing is part of nature.

This is how we understand that life inevitably triumphs over death. Death is never the end. It is part of a larger dynamic process.

Preparing for this Sunday, I thought about how many of you are grieving. Some of you are freshly bereft, not ready to contemplate what comes next. Others of you are moving slowly through the work that takes months and even years to complete.

Still others of you know now in ways you could not have known before, how the experience of loss and the work of grieving have changed you. And out of that change you have grown to become more truly yourself.

Grief is a powerful force. Its impact is decisive and irrevocable. When we say that life goes on, we are speaking of life that has been altered by the experience of grief. Yet it is this process that is creative, life-affirming, and cause for celebration. Out of the devastation of loss can come growth and beauty.

Therapist Donna Gaffney, in a book about grief, uses a simple fable to illustrate the positive value of grief work. "A king once owned a large, beautiful, pure diamond," she writes, "of which he was justly proud, for it had no equal anywhere. One day, this diamond was accidentally deeply scratched. The king called in the most expert diamond cutters and offered them a great reward if they would remove the imperfection from his jewel. But none could repair the blemish. The king was sorely distressed. After some time a gifted [artist] came to the king and promised to make the rare diamond even more beautiful than it had been before the mishap. The king was impressed by the [artist's] confidence and entrusted to him his precious stone. The man kept his word. With superb artistry he engraved a lovely rosebud around the imperfection, using the scratch to make the stem.”

Gaffney concludes, "Death leaves a wound on our beings, much like the scratch in the diamond. When we grieve, we are the gifted [artist]. With time, patience, and encouragement, we can grow from the deepest scratch.”

How life goes on depends on what we make of our wound. Yes, we are changed forever. We cannot go back. But the wound can also be the source of creative energy, leading us back to life.

My father died just over two years ago. Our family had been preparing for this event for a long time, as had my father, who waited patiently for "nature to take its course," as he said more than once. Although I was well prepared, I still grieved.

I recall that I was restless and irritable in the months afterwards. I felt tapped out. I kept to myself more than usual.

I cannot say exactly when I started to feel better. Grief is a gradual process, sometimes working imperceptibly while life goes on. Long after I stopped feeling sad, I became aware of how something had shifted inside me. The loss of a parent is a major life event for all of us; it changes who we are and how we see the world. I hope my experience has made me more sensitive to others when they must go through it too. If it has, then this is how grieving for my father has been a creative process for me.

My family has changed as well, especially my mother. After a period of failing health, depression and resentment towards her children for living so far away, my mother found her life again. At the age of 85,she formed a relationship with a man – a younger man –who lives in her retirement community. Indeed, she has shown us that it is possible to have a romance even with diminished short term memory, and limited mobility; perhaps these conditions help it along. My mother has a new chapter in her life story. Her children now must adjust to her new life and her nice new man. My brother bought her an answering machine so that we could leave her messages now that she is rarely home.

When I see my mother now, I see sides of her I never knew before. And it's a little strange. But it's good. It's something to celebrate.

Life goes on. We are not the same. "Life goes on," writes Edna St. Vincent Millay. "I forget just why." But soon she will remember.

The work of grieving is a journey back to new life. The wound may be deep; it does not go away. Rather, the wound too becomes part of the new life; it gives us a new way of being ourselves. We become life going on after loss and grief, life going on to new experiences and joys, life going on to greater compassion and wisdom. They are hard-won changes and gains, but they are ours and they make us who we are, and for that reason we celebrate, and give thanks for the dead, who have given us new life.

References used in this sermon include The Seasons of Grief, by Dr. Donna A. Gaffney (New York: Penguin Books, 1988).