Honoring Our Ancestors
Altars, places to honor our ancestors along with displays of that which we experience as sacred, were never part of my upbringing. I didn’t start having an altar until well into my adulthood. A central part of my home altar is my connection to the ancestors. My ancestors include family and friends who died and some becoming ancestors too soon on their life path.
Our connection to those who lived before us can be deep and profound if we invite their memories into our lives. Not only their memories, but what they worked for and how
they lived.
Those of us who hold identities that have been the target of oppression know that our ancestors faced hardships we may never fully understand intellectually, but we carry the memory in our bodies.
As a woman born in Egypt and raised a strict Muslim in the United States, I have had to face challenges that include anti-immigrant sentiments when I was a child from those here in the United States, and in Egypt I was faced with misogyny and strict rules of conduct because of my family’s interpretation of the faith. I often felt stifled as a child and teenager, rules imposed on me did not apply to my male cousins of the same age. I was angry at the unfairness of it and I finally left the faith in my early twenties.
I connect most closely with my female ancestors, especially my two grandmothers. I knew my maternal grandmother, Labiba (her first name) and I adored her. She was feisty, gregarious and honest to a fault. I am grateful that I remember my maternal grandparents. My grandfather Abdelgawed (his first name), was more of a quiet introvert, who was kind and generous. I have a picture of both my grandparents on my altar.
My paternal grandmother is my namesake, Aisha. By all accounts she was the life of the party, a vivacious, generous and welcoming soul. She died when I was young and I don’t have any memories of her. I was born in Egypt and spent my first year of life living with her in Alexandria.
There is a picture of me as an infant on her lap and it is the only picture I know of with the two of us together.
I will never know what my grandmothers had to endure as Muslim females who were mandated into behaving a certain way in order not to be ostracized. They made the best of their circumstances, that I do know given how generous of spirit they were and how I heard stories of their antics.
My grandmothers are the reason I am alive, they suggested to my parents that they marry each other. They were friends and loved to laugh with each other, host parties and socialize.
I think of them often with the knowledge that I am living the life they didn’t know was possible for a female. I am independent, a faith leader and working for liberation of all. I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.
Ancestors
What is your relationship with your ancestors like? What shapes that relationship for you?
Shawn
CLF member, incarcerated in PA
My relationship with my ancestors is very, very important. I have relationships with them just like you would with your living relations. Because, as I see it, they are just as alive as our relations, they are just on another plane of existence, yet here with us. They are around you all the time. You just may not be able to see them. Some of us can.
Ancestor worship is important to Wiccans, Druids and Native Americans. The Japanese also have ancestor worship. You can learn from them because they lived in another time and/or place. You can talk to them and worship them. Revere them. They still shape our lives as they did in the past. They flow through our veins. So it is very important to have a relationship with them. I learn from them as I would with my living relations. We have remnants of them in our Megalithic structures.
Gary
CLF member, incarcerated in NC
Growing up in the South during the 1960s was tumultuous but also a time of tremendous change. Coming from Quaker ancestry, my forebears were active in the Underground Railroad at what is now Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina.
Heritage means many things. Just as each individual is unique but also complex, so too is one’s ancestry.
Jacob
CLF member incarcerated in AR
My relationship with my ancestors is definitely not what I want it to be. I have barely explored it and feel like I am ignoring parts of their sacrifices and wisdom. I know some of my father’s side but have not been in the situation where I have been able to explore my Cherokee ancestry. My great grandmother Easter Sunrise dropped off the Trail of Tears in Missouri. I do not know much of anything about my mother’s side of things. Who are her ancestors? Due to all of this I have decided to start trying to learn more of both sides. I truly want to know where I came from, where my ancestors’ beliefs came from and what shaped them.
Kudzu
GARY
CLF member, incarcerated in NC
I am from persimmons,
from Karo syrup, and grits.
I am from the front porch,
wide, long, cool in the Southern heat.
I am from magnolias,
whose fragrance is the quintessential South.
I am from Sunday dinners and blue eyes,
from Joseph and Kathleen.
I am from the stiff upper lip,
from seen and not heard.
I am from back row Methodism.
I am from Glenwood and Randolph,
Guilford and Shropshire,
the Queen Anne II,
Icebox fruitcake, fried chicken,
homemade cream puffs.
I am from the Christmas ornaments
made of cardboard and glitter
that Pop bought during World War II
when metal and glass went to fight Hitler,
carefully preserved, precious, rare.
I am from Grandma’s tea set, fragile,
tea pouring from a dragon’s mouth,
Sitting out of reach upon the sideboard,
teaching me to value heritage, tradition,
family.
Samhain (Learning to Hold Ancestors Close)
This piece was originally written and shared in October 2021 at my brick-and-morter congregation, Theodore Parker UU Church.
In the almost seven months since my beloved mother’s death, I have needed to learn the world all over again. Every seasonal shift, every holiday and tradition lands differently now; every detail of the world exists only in relationship with my grief.
When Halloween decorations started cropping up around my neighborhood this month, I realized that I was seeing the fake skeletons, ghosts, and gravestones — all of these casual references to death — entirely differently. It’s not exactly that I’ve minded that images of death on display around me, but more that I felt their irony in a new way. Halloween might be the closest this culture comes to having a holiday where death is on the surface, honored in some way, but even saying that is a stretch — this is a season of surface-level nods to death, with little space for holding its reality.
I don’t fault Halloween itself for this, nor do I begrudge my neighbors and the plastic gravestones on their lawn. The denial of death and grief in this culture is so much bigger than any one holiday. Modern Western culture, particularly white, mainstream Christian culture, sees life as an onwards and upward trajectory, and grief as a hard but brief, quiet, private time to get through. Even in this time of pandemic, in the mass death event we are all living through, dominant culture urges us to move ever forward, ever more quickly back to ‘normal’ — with little to no mention of our need to mourn the beloved people and things we have lost.
I’ve been feeling the irony of how we (sort of) (a little bit) reference death around Halloween particularly strongly, because the roots of this holiday offer something very different. Our modern Halloween has its roots in the cultural tradition of many of my ancestors: the ancient pre-Christian Irish/Celtic festival of Samhain (pronouced Sow-en), and its Christian equivalent of All Hallow’s Eve.
I’ve been interested in the culture and spiritual traditions of my ancestors for a long time; I see it as part of my responsibility as a white person to try to understand who my people were before we were considered white, and how the processes of colonization and assimilation brought us here. And now, as I try to process my grief, my interest in ancestral practice feels more like a longing, a need to be connected to a deeper sense of time, lineage, and culture.
So I’ve been exploring what is known about the spiritual traditions of my ancestors, including this ancient festival of Samhain, and trying to see what in those traditions might serve as antidotes for all that modern white culture lacks, particularly in relation to holding death and grief.
Samhain is known as one of the cross-quarter days in the Celtic wheel of the year, the approximate mid-point between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. It was a feast day, a festival to mark the end of the harvest season and welcome in winter’s darkness. The always-fluid boundary between the worlds — meaning the world of the living and the otherworld, where ancestors and other spirits dwell — was thought to be particularly porous around Samhain and the other seasonal festivals, like spring’s Beltaine; all times of great transition and liminality.
In contemporary pagan practice, Samhain is often referenced as a holiday about ancestors, a day to honor our beloved dead and perhaps feel closer to them than at other times. But much of my research suggests that seeing this as the one day to connect with beloved dead is more of a modern way of understanding the festival. Within the Celtic culture and worldview, ancestors were always present in daily life, and most major festivals honored and celebrated them in some way. Samhain has come to have a particular association with the dead simply because it marked the entry point into the winter, into the dark part of the year — and that whole season brought with it both a closeness to death, and more regular, ritual honoring of beloved ancestors.
I want to step back for a moment, and sit with that a bit more. Particularly if you are someone who knows and carries with you any kind of close loss — can you imagine how different it might feel to live within a culture were your beloved dead were held closely by your whole community at every holiday, and even particularly for a whole season of the year? A culture in which it was normal to speak their names, leave offerings for them, hold feasts in their honor, regardless of how long it was from their year of death?
Ancient Irish culture is, of course, far from the only culture to have practices of ancestor veneration, and to have holidays that honor the dead. I’m sure, actually, that in every one of our lineages, as close as in this generation or thousands of years back, we could all find traditions with deeply similar themes — because, of course, death is universal, and the need to honor it and tend to our grief is perhaps the most basic human need.
This is something I keep coming back to: these ancient cultural traditions of ancestor connection and honoring all come from the same universal human need to keep our loved ones close, especially when we are separated from them by death. Those traditions are now largely absent from our dominant culture — but the need for them has not gone away. Death is just as much of a reality in our lives now, it is simply less acknowledged; grief is just as present, it just less collectively held.
What would it look like for us now, in this tradition we are co-creating, to hold and honor our beloved dead together? Not just on this holiday, or even just this season, but all of the time? Informed by ancient practices or by simple human need, how can we begin, in whatever small way, to un-learn the death-denying norms of modern culture and embrace our ancestors once again?
Embracing Repair
In a world marked by imperfections and the passage of time, the concept of repair takes on a profound significance. Repair is not merely about fixing broken objects or restoring functionality; it extends to healing relationships, bridging divides, and nurturing our connection with the world around us.
Repair
What does repair look and feel like to you?
Have you experienced significant moments of repair in your relationship with yourself or others?
Writing My Wrongs
Leo Cardez
CLF member, incarcerated in IL
There is nothing exactly like living in Hell, but there is something close to it: jail and prison. In my hell, where I lived for most of 2015, there is, as Dante understood, no hope. People think the worst part of being locked up is the loss of freedom. They are wrong. The worst part is the loss of hope and purpose. You wake up every morning realizing your nightmare will continue into your waking hours. The loss you have suffered is permanent. Life will never be the same. In many real ways you are already dead, just unburied. There is no healing, no improvement, but even worse, there is no possibility of any to come. The most unbearable thing about your unbearable life is that you will always be forced to bear it.
In the midst of my horrific incarceration experience, alone and desperate to stop hemorrhaging relationships, I wondered if those who hated me were watching somehow they might find my misery satisfying? I might have, if I believed everything that was said about me. On a particularly dark evening, I considered doing
just that. I doubted anyone could despise me more than I did myself —
I couldn’t even stand my own reflection. But one can only fall so deep into the well before being consumed by the darkness. I admit, I considered the coward’s solution, but in writing my final note, I could not find the right words to convey the magnitude of what I was feeling. I refused to settle and postponed my act of desperation another night. Night after night I tried, but there were no words big enough… Instead, I found myself simply journaling about my day.
I wrote about everything and nothing, whatever popped into my head. My only rule was raw honesty. I figured if this was to mean anything to anyone it must above all be true. I didn’t realize honest writing will tear your guts out. Like when I wrote about the shame and pain I saw in my mother’s eyes when she came to visit me in prison — knowing it was my fault, and worse,
I could do nothing to help her. That feeling of helplessness was like being stuck in a barrel at the bottom of the ocean with no options. There is nothing worse.
Still I wrote. Everyday. I wrote by the light of the morning sun through my dirty cracked window or glare of the hallway lights through my cell bars. I promised myself I would write every day, no excuses… and I have. Now, 7 years later, I have learned that writing to me wasn’t a diversion, it was my church. It offered salvation in the promise of change. Escaping Hell is difficult because sometimes there are too many people who enjoy seeing you there, but with enough effort, grace; and in my case, pens and paper, it can be done.
As I re-read some of my earliest journal entries, I marvel at the flawed, petty, unhappy person I was. I also noticed that as my writing evolved into a more positive realm, so did my actual life. My writing became prophetic. As I tried to make the best of things, every now and then, I succeeded. As I look around today I can see that writing has helped me appreciate life in a whole new light.
When my parents wrote to tell me they were proud of me, even as I sat in prison, I am not ashamed to admit: I wept. I cried again after my sister’s last visit, seeing her changed and beautiful from the inside out; having found what she had been searching for, though not in the places she had been looking. I owe all of it to the power of the written word. It has taught me how to look inward in order to look forward. It has provided me with the key to an escape hatch to the next chapter of my life.
Updates from the CLF’s 2023 Annual Meeting
The CLF held its Annual Congregational Meeting on Sunday June 11, 2023. Anyone who could not attend the meeting was invited to vote by mail ahead of the meeting. We received 248 votes by mail and 43 members attended the meeting.
CLF members voted for the slate of nominations presented by the nominating committee (272 yes, 3 no, 7 abstain) as follows:
– Rev. Dr. JJ Flag for Board of Directors for a three year term
– Heather Gatland for Board of Directors for a three year term
– Rev. Christe Lunsford for Board of Directors for a three year term
– Doreen Christiani for Board of Directors for one year (to complete an unfinished term)
– Darbi Lockridge for Treasurer for a one year term
– Mandy Neff for Clerk for a one year term
– Katie Resendiz de Perez for Nominating Committee for a three year term
CLF members also voted to ordain Steven Leigh Williams, a CLF Learning Fellow, as a
Unitarian Universalist minister (269 yes, 2 no, 9 abstain). Steven was recommended for ministry by the UUA Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee. The now-Reverend Steven’s ordination was on July 2, 2023.
Intro to the Special Edition: Quest for Seekers
Welcome! Welcome to Quest, welcome to the Church of the Larger Fellowship, and welcome to Unitarian Universalism.
This is a special issue of Quest meant specifically for those who are new to the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) and Unitarian Universalism, and want to learn more about both. We are a community of spiritual seekers: Unitarian Universalism is a faith bound not by dogmatic beliefs, but by a commitment to love, learn, and grow with one another. We learn from and are resourced by many different spiritual paths and wisdom traditions, and embrace theological diversity within our communities. Our shared beliefs center around love and liberation for all people, and a commitment to creating more justice in the world. If that intrigues you, keep reading.
In this issue you’ll find the guiding principles and values of Unitarian Universalism, a timeline of our congregation’s history, and more about our shared theological commitments. You’ll also see some testimonials from members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist congregation behind Quest, about the impact that the CLF has had on their lives.
Regular issues of Quest include reflections on monthly spiritual themes, poetry and artwork from our members, and opportunities to engage with the life of our congregation. The CLF is a congregation with no geographical boundary, and Quest is just one way that we connect with our 3000+ members, more than half of whom are currently experiencing incarceration. Our members who have access to the internet can join our weekly online worship services, take classes and be a part of small discussion circles, and our members who are not online have access to correspondence courses, reading packets, and pen pal connections. Please visit our website or write to us if you would like to learn more.
We hope to connect more soon—until then, enjoy this introduction to our vibrant, liberatory faith community!
Unitarian Universalist Principles & Values
Our Unitarian Universalist faith is bound by covenant — the sacred promises we make to one another — instead of by creed or dogma. The covenant that connects all of Unitarian Universalism is articulated in Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) bylaws. As of 2023, the language of that covenant is in transition; a new articulation of our shared faith values is under discussion, and may be voted in as the official language of our faith in 2024. We have included both the new language, and our existing Unitarian Universalist principles (which were adopted in 1985) below.
UU Principles
Principles 1–7: adopted by the UUA 1985
Principle 8: adopted by the CLF in 2020
We, the member congregations of the UUA, covenant to affirm and promote:
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The inherent worth and dignity of every person
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Justice, equity and compassion in human relations
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Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
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A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
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The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large
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The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
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Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part
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Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions
UU Values
Language proposed by the Article II Study Commission in 2022; up for a vote to adopt denomination-wide at UUA General Assembly in 2024
Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love. Inseparable from one another, these shared values are:
Interdependence
We honor the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. With humility and reverence, we covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation, creating and nurturing sustainable relationships of repair, mutuality and justice.
Pluralism
We celebrate that we are all sacred beings diverse in culture, experience, and theology. We covenant to learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We embrace our differences
and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect.
Justice
We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all thrive. We covenant to dismantle racism and all forms of systemic oppression. We support the use of inclusive democratic processes to make decisions within our congregation and the society at large.
Transformation
We adapt to the changing world. We covenant to collectively transform and grow spiritually and ethically. Openness to change is fundamental to our Unitarian and Universalist heritages, never complete and never perfect.
Generosity
We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.
Equity
We declare that every person has the right to flourish with inherent dignity and worthiness. We covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.
