Claire Riser standing with her altar.

Día de Muertos–Anglo style

I walked into the sanctuary and immediately was drawn into a place of reverence and love.  About ten people had created altars (displays really) to remember loved ones.  They had carefully chosen pictures, things, food that reflected the lives of friends or family. Hanging from the balcony were “clouds of witnesses” with drawings the children had done of grandparents.

Claire Riser, a retired Spanish teacher, had taught her Spanish students about the ways that Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico with several days of  remembering loved ones. Now we were her students.

Jonathan Clowes photographs the altar in honor of his family members.

I invited the congregation to listen to Carroll Smith’s extraordinary organ music in silence. Some sat and others walked around and looked at the displays.  Orange and yellow slips of paper were available for people to write the name of a deceased person and bring to the communion table.  Many names were brought forward.

The love and the grief were palpable. There were tears.  We could cry without having to explain. Our love and grief and gratitude were both deeply private and profoundly shared. We brought our love and our heartache to the foot of the cross.  The organ stopped and a middle school student and I rang the bell.

“Take and Eat: the body of Christ broken for you.”  We shared bread and wine as we celebrated the sacrament of communion that has nourished our people for 2000 years.

We will die.  All of us. The breath will stop.  We will enter into the mystery.

For now, we live and celebrate in community–at the cross and the empty tomb–sharing Christ’s love in word and deed and silence.