We’ve had four funerals at St. Martin’s in the past month, and I also spoke at William & Mary’s Sunset Ceremony, an annual time of honoring alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the university who have died in the last year. So it’s been a season of loss, and of reflecting on the rituals and words that may help us weather it.
One of the voices that has kept me company through these weeks is Sarah Wildman, staff editor and writer for The New York Times, whose 14-year-old daughter, Orli, died this past March from cancer. “Living in loss is heavy,” she wrote last week. “It is made all the more so by a world overflowing with grief, and parental pain. I see myself in all these newly minted members of my terrible club.”
Wildman’s essay, called “The Empty Seat at Our Thanksgiving Table,” spoke to me on many levels: as an auxiliary member of her terrible club (my stepson, Jonathan, died in April 2020), as a pastor accompanying parishioners through the deaths of loved ones and as a person living in that world overflowing with grief. Hearing of countless deaths of fellow human beings from war, violence, illness and natural disasters, especially if we’re also facing personal or communal losses closer to home, can make us feel overwhelmed and despairing. Despite the calendar, giving thanks may be the furthest thing from our minds and hearts.
But Monday night, we gathered again at Walsingham Academy for our sixth annual HART Multifaith Thanksgiving Service. As Historic Area Religions Together, we lamented and hoped, hearing reflections and prayers from Jewish, Unitarian, Christian and Muslim leaders and practicing compassion with a Buddhist meditation. We sang in solidarity, acknowledging what can feel like the best and worst of times, naming what is broken and testifying to the promise of healing and peace. We remembered our dear friend Monsignor Joe Lehman, who died just a few weeks after last year’s service, and we were reminded of God’s love by a choir of beautiful children. And we gave thanks, as one prayer put it, “to the marrow of our bone.”
People often ask me about the emotional toll of presiding at funerals, especially those coming close together as our congregation has recently experienced. Of course, the pain of separation from those we love is real, and tears are a natural — and holy — response. If a loss comes unexpectedly, or violently, or much too soon, shock and trauma can compound the grief. But there’s a reason families often want to call a funeral service a “celebration of life.” Coming together to remember someone who has died helps remind us of the blessing that they lived at all, inspiring gratitude for all the ways they made a difference in our own lives and in the world.
In the church, we have a fancy Greek word for this kind of remembering: anamnesis, which literally means “against amnesia.” It’s stronger, more muscular, than mere reminiscence — it’s more like resistance, refusing to forget. As we remember, we bring back together the moments that have made us who we are. We remember our relationship, defying the distance between the living and the dead. It’s real, but it’s not the only reality. So for all their sadness, funerals can be fortifying, as we give thanks for our fellow humans, both those who have died and those who have come to accompany and support us when we need it most.
“In this time of mass bereavement,” Wildman writes, “I keep wondering if the key to seeing each other’s humanity is in somehow recognizing how universal the terrible ongoing nature of loss is, how human it makes us, how frail, how essential each day is, when none of us has any idea about the next.”
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for those whose lives we’ve been celebrating at St. Martin’s, and for all those who have come through our doors to remember, mourn, pray and practice compassion. I’m grateful for the diversity of religions and spiritual paths in our community, for the friendships we have fostered through HART and for the new ways we may find to learn about and stand up for each other. And I’m grateful that even in the face of loss, we humans can come together to give thanks for our lives and the lives of others, for all that is essential and fragile and holy in our world. Happy Thanksgiving!
The Rev. Lisa Green is rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in James City County.
