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All Souls: Hearts Remembering
An address given by Rev. Don W. Vaughn-Foerster
At the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Grand Traverse
Traverse City, Michigan
October 31, 2004

In ancient pagan days, this time of year was a festival of commemoration of those who had passed from human sight but not from human love and were sadly and reverentially remembered. Western culture has continued such observance into the present day because it is an altogether natural thing that those who have gone before be held in loving remembrance.

All Saints Day (Nov. 1) was created by the Christian church to celebrate the lives of persons it felt were already in heaven. This was too narrow a focus for people who felt that there were more worthy souls than just those of the Christian faith. Therefore, All Souls Day (Nov. 2) was created to venerate the lives of persons of all faiths. It is the logic of All Souls Day that inspires us as Unitarians and Universalists to pause at this time of the year to be glad for those who have gone before us and to take special notice of the continuing power of their spirits in our lives.

Thus, we are gathered here today to be with one another in such ways that we may share our gratitude for the lives of others who, in some way, have enabled our own lives to be what they are. We shall speak our words, share our songs, share our pictures, and light our candles. We shall once again feel that peace in our hearts which arises when we remember the love and comfort special persons in our lives have given us.
To share our song, please turn to hymn # 336, “All My Memories of Love”, and stand and sing as you are able.

All Souls and Heart’s Remembering - II

All living substance, all substance of energy, being, and purpose are united
and share the same destiny.
All people, those we love and those we know not of, are united and share
the same destiny.
Birth-to-death we share this unity with the sun, earth, our bothers and
sisters, strangers, flowers of the field, snow flakes,
volcanoes and moon beams.
Birth -- Life -- Death; Unknown -- Known -- Unknown: our destiny from
unknown to unknown.
May we have the faith to accept this mystery and build upon its everlasting
Truth. David H. Eaton, #557 in Singing the Living Tradition]

We are here in the spirit of All Souls to honor, of course, the great people of history, the saints hallowed by the churches, the multitudes of those we will never know gone before and to come after. But, we are even more here to honor persons close to us: persons who have infused us with both the desire and the courage to live. The spirit of their lives has been real and powerful in our own lives. We have no clear knowledge of where they have gone nor of where we shall go, but we would not forget them. We would acknowledge that we are all travelers, but travelers on the same journey. We would acknowledge that, through that which they have infused into our lives, we continue a journey they have started.

It was Carl Sandburg who wrote:

I am more than a traveler out of Nowhere.
Sea and land, sky and air, begot me somewhere.
Where I go from here and now,
or if I go at all again,
the Maker of sea and land,
of sky and air, can tell.

Each of us is more than a traveler out of Nowhere. We have traveled through time and space -- borne on airships of memory -- and have been carried in vessels of love. Each of us has been enriched by the lives of others and we would here make solemn acknowledgment of the power and the meaning they have imparted to us. They are precious to our own heart’s remembering.

You may make such an acknowledgment while the Vocal Ensemble sings a very special song. Please listen closely to the words and, when the opportunity is given, come forward, light a candle, and place a picture or an object in memory of a person special to your life. Or you may simply light a candle.

All Souls and Hearts’ Remembering - III

We have gathered to share in some way with one another the memories in each of our individual hearts. We share, however, a larger heart -- a heart that we know resides in the depth of our care and regard (and love) for one another as a harmonious gathering of friends and comrades. For we know that, when we gather, a thousand unseen ties link us to one another -- ties that bind us in one body with one another, ties that reach through one another to bind us with all of humankind. You as a congregation have some very special ties. You have listened and learned and worked together to make a place for yourselves together in this world. You have supported one another, disagreed with one another, always valuing one another as friends and comrades. You have danced and sung together to tunes of joy in the hours of birth, and marriage, and personal fulfillment. You have wept tears of sorrow in the hours of frustration and death. You have such ties together as tie you in humanity to the larger cloud of witnesses that preceded and contains us all as one humankind.

It is good that these ties be acknowledged and that our heart’s remembering be shared. Such veneration of the lives that have been and the lives we have will someday move the world into peace with itself.

We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.
We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation,
and need to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose,
and cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of success,
when we look for someone to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour of defeat,
when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.
We need one another when we come to die,
and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.
[George E. Odell, #468 in Singing the Living Tradition]

The whole world needs us; we need the world. We need the peace that comes from profound needs fulfilled. We can sing of such peace with the words in the Order of Service.

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