For All of Us — Since We Cannot Physically Attend Church

Autumn evokes so much in us—memories of returning to school; playing in autumn leaves; making new friends; going trick-or-treating.

In Mexico, the first of November honors the Day of the Dead and in October, we name and honor all of the members of our church we’ve lost during the year. It is a time of remembrance and reflection.

The following poem by Wendell Berry is one of my favorite poems about loss and the ephemeral nature of life.

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No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over the grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(The Sabbath Poems, 1993, I)