Ancestors
Remembering our beloved dead helps us understand our own place in the world. This sermon was written for the UU’s of Fallston, October 30, 2011.
Falling leaves and changing seasons remind many of us that death is part of life. Our thoughts might turn to those who have gone before. They are with us in mind and heart, and perhaps in other ways as well. Listening through the veil of life and death is part of the search for meaning. We listen because we yearn for wisdom and hope for a sense of belonging in time and space.
In this morning’s prelude, Sweet Honey in the Rock sang that the ancestors are in the rustling trees, and that they are heard in the voice of the fire, and that they are in the wailing child. The song reminds me that there are many ways to listen for the wisdom that our beloved dead have left behind. We can listen for reminders in nature. We can listen to the tales and songs shared around a fire. We can listen through the love and friendship that live on. Earth, stories, and relationship all carry the breath of the ancestors.
Ancestors Heard in the Natural World
“They are in the rustling trees. They are in the groaning woods. They are in the crying grass. They are in the moaning rocks. The dead are not under the earth.” -Sweet Honey in the Rock
I have definitely experienced times when the natural world invoked my ancestors when I needed them.
For the first six weeks after the twins were born, I spent most of my time in one or two rooms of the house, curtains drawn, trying to sleep whenever possible in between feedings. I wasn’t supposed to climb stairs unnecessarily or lift heavy things. The babies weren’t moving very far or fast at that point, so collapsing my world into a few square feet was fine for awhile. By the time I emerged from my cave, it was almost September. We moved the babies’ play area to a room with more windows to see the world and more floor space for rolling around.
I had everything I wanted, although I didn’t always have the energy to appreciate it. To tell you the truth, I felt anxious and inadequate much of the time. I also missed my mom. She had passed away two years before that. I was thinking about her, and about how much she would have liked to meet the babies, when a butterfly fluttered past the window. And stayed. The next day, I saw another one, or maybe the same one. It seemed like we had a winged visitor every day for about a month. Butterflies were some of the first things I remember the babies visually tracking outside the window.
I like to think that when someone dies, their energy and consciousness—their soul, if you like—is returned to the flow of the universe. Just as all living matter is eventually received back into the earth, our intangible selves are reclaimed by the source of love. That’s just me. UUs have a wide variety of beliefs and hopes about life and death. I mention mine to clarify that it seems to me that butterflies both do and do not represent the spirits of my ancestors. My beloved dead are with me because they are part of everything. Personally, I don’t hear specific messages from anywhere outside my memory. At the same time, it’s a comfort to imagine the presence of my ancestors as droplets in the mist, part of the force that rustles the trees and bends the grass in the morning dew.
Even with that cautious symbolism, the butterflies were enough. They got me to look up, to remember that there’s a world outside and that I have a place in it. The voice of the ancestors in nature can remind us of belonging to the interdependent web, and of the possibility that we may find a sense of peace.
Ancestors Heard in Stories and Heritage
“‘Tis the ancestors’ breath when the fire’s voice is heard. ‘Tis the ancestors’ breath in the voice of the water.” -Sweet Honey in the Rock
In addition to the voices that come to us in nature, the stories about our beloved dead that are drawn from us in the presence of basic elements are echoes of their voices.
Warmth and water draw people into circles. They invite stories into the center. Maybe you have the experience of being on a camping trip sitting around a fire, or listening in the dark to the voices of friends as the waves lap nearby. Songs and legends are passed down around the circle, carrying wisdom and a sense of belonging from generation to generation. No one person can carry all of the love and knowledge that have been given from the past. We each have a little bit that lives with us, and that we keep alive with our voices.
In the congregation where I became a UU, we had an annual retreat among the California redwoods. We had a short service before dinner on Friday and Saturday, and a chance for each person of any age to share silly songs after dinner. Members volunteered to lead hikes and workshops and craft activities. Whatever talent we could share had a place. All of those skills, even the silly songs, came from somewhere. They all represented a person or a community that had taught them to us, someone who entrusted us with the stewardship of that bit of heritage.
This became especially evident late at night, when those who weren’t ready for sleep came back to the fireplace in the community cabin. Tea and hot cocoa warmed our cups, and old stories ventured out onto the hearth. People spoke of their very human parents, and what they learned from family in spite of their failings. Others spoke lovingly about departed spouses, or told funny stories about the church members of previous generations. Maybe it’s easier to speak those stories into the fire, letting something elemental hold the center.
Listening to the stories and songs that people of all ages brought to the fire, I learned about my community. I learned what made them laugh and what made them mad. Their stories about people who had gone before told me where they got their passion for justice and their eccentric pluckiness and their ability to love mightily.
Stories and songs convey wisdom from generation to generation, and I think we have some additional reasons for re-telling them. The once-upon-a-time from our heritage or our personal history helps us to find the to-be-continued of the present moment. Whether we are finding our place in time or traveling through memory by way of grief, giving voice to elemental stories helps us to navigate.
In his book, A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis journals through his bereavement following the death of his wife. In the last chapter, he writes:
“I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history … There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” (Chapter 4)
In other words, the elemental tales, those you can tell in a circle of fire or water, not only help us to remember our beloved dead, they help us to remember our own, ongoing stories. The ancestors’ breath when the fire’s voice is heard is also our own.
Ancestors Heard in Human Relationships
“They are in the woman’s breast, they are in the wailing child, they are with us in the home, they are with us in the crowd. The dead have a pact with the living.” -Sweet Honey in the Rock
Hearing the presence of those who were absent was especially poignant in the pacific central forest. One of the ways that coast redwood trees reproduce is by sprouting from the root crown of a dying tree. They might sprout up in a straight line along the path of a fallen trunk, or in a circle called a fairy ring around the stump. As the original tree decomposes, the space that’s left and the arrangement of young trees are clues to what was there before. The tree that is absent is visible because of the trees that are present.
I think the same is true for humans. Our communities, families, and friendships are arranged with traces of influence from those who have gone before. Mentors and teachers live on in the debates that they initiated us into. A phrase passed between friends invokes the presence of the person who coined it. We listen to our beloved dead through the human relationships that were fed by their life on earth.
Sweet Honey in the Rock sings that “the dead have a pact with the living … They are with us in the home, they are with us in the crowd.” Emotions, values, and skills reach into the future, living on in people who never met the ancestors face-to-face.
My kids are named after people who have died. This is a tradition from the Jewish side of their family. My son’s first name comes from Ondiru’s step-grandfather, not someone who is genetically related to any of us, but someone whose love, perseverance, and appreciation for beauty we wanted to re-invest in the world. Both of the twins’ middle names are in honor of ancestors from Ackb’s family. My daughter usually goes by her own nickname, but her full first name is the same as my mother’s. Their names remind us to teach what we have learned, and to appreciate what they have to teach.
Family ties are not the only kind of relationships that outlast individual lives. I used to travel all over the mid-Atlantic to visit different Unitarian Universalist congregations. Every one of them carried some kind of legacy. Even the congregations that didn’t have meeting houses of their own had banners that had been created by founders or a memorial scholarship fund or a box of carefully archived records that reminded them of departed members. Pictures on the walls, plaques on the pews, and stained glass windows all pointed to the reality that strong communities are built not just with bricks and mortar but also with generosity and compassion. The same bonds of friendship and covenant that gathered a church in 1817 or 1997 continue weaving through those congregations today.
The tree that is absent is visible because of the trees that are present. Here in Fallston, we have a comfortable meeting house and room to grow. This space is like a fairy ring, the gift of those who have gone before, reverberations of relationship through time. We listen to the voice of the ancestors when we appreciate what their dreams have built, and when we make conscious decisions about growing those dreams in new directions.
Conclusion
Nature, stories, and human relationships carry echoes of our beloved dead through time. Listening to their voices helps us to understand ourselves and each other, placing our connections in context within the family of things.
In the coming weeks, when the wind shakes the trees, remember the breath that mingled with other winds at other times. Remember the living beings that have confirmed your belonging with this changing earth.
When you have an occasion to sit by the fire or the water, listen. The stories that emerge from around you and from within you have something to teach.
When you gather with loved ones, look at the space in between you. Absent friends are with us still, whispering encouragement to continue through the winding valley of life.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
