ALL SAINTS DAY... This Week at UCCW
“I am reminded of the biblical use of the term saint in the book of Acts. That it applies to each of us. All who are attempting to imitate the Christ in their lives merit the title of ‘saint.’” --Matthew Fox
Happy Halloween! Today is All Hallows Eve, leading into All Saints Day (or All Hallows Day) tomorrow on November 1. Both these Christian holidays are borrowed from the Celtic pagan festival of Samhain (pronounced SAH-win), during which the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is believed to be at its thinnest.
Certainly, there are many in our world who are experiencing firsthand of the thinness of that veil this Halloween. Many of us have lost dear ones in the past year; and we especially mourn with the families and loved ones of the martyrs of the horrifying antisemitic attack on Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh this last weekend.
In memory of all those “saints” who have left us this year—whether due to old age, or accident, or racist violence, or illness—I share this poem by the poet Annie Finch, “Samhain.” May the memories of our dear ones be a blessing that inspires us to embrace this gift of life ever more fully.
QUESTIONS FOR THE WEEK: Who are you holding in memory this All Saints Day? How best can we honor the legacy and lessons of those who have gone before us?
…
SAMHAIN
Annie Finch
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53066/samhain
In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.
Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil
that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.
I move my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my own mind across another,
I am with my mother's mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings
arms that carry answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
"Carry me." She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.
...
COMING UP
Wednesday 10/31
• Tom at LATI community office hours 9am – 12pm
• No Wednesday Youth Church
• No UCCW Choir
Thursday 11/1
• Tom’s Community Office Hours, 9am-12pm @ Gather
Sunday 11/4
• Daylight saving times ends, be sure to turn your clocks back one hour on Saturday night!
• Adult Bible Study, 8:45am
• Communion Sunday Worship 10am, with candle light memorial
• Book Study 4pm, (Fellowship Hall)
Wednesday 11/7
• Tom at LATI community office hours 9am – 12pm
• Women's Fellowship 12:30 pm leadership committee, 1:30 pm Fellowship
• Wednesday Youth Church, 6pm
• UCCW Choir, 7pm
Meals on Wheels: November 13, – November 16, 2018
Volunteers are always needed to help deliver the meals, if you are available to help Kathy please call her at 886-4962. Your help is always appreciated. The Meals will not be delivered on Monday, November 12, Veteran’s Day observed.