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?

What does repair look and feel like to you?

Have you experienced significant moments of repair in your relationship with yourself or others?

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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.

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:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person

2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations

3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations

4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning

5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large

6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all

7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part

8. 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.

In the 1940s, as the German army began to impose its totalitarianism across Europe, many people fled in fear of their lives. At the time, the Unitarian Service Committee (USC) committed itself to rescuing as many refugees as possible. Their work was dangerous, and they saved the lives of many.

The documents created to help these refugees escape needed an official logo, so Dr. Charles Joy of the Unitarian Service Committee hired a graphic designer, Hans Deutsch, himself a refugee, to create one. The flaming chalice drew upon ancient religious symbols to be an official seal for the USC. The communion chalice, the holy oils used for blessing in many religions, the altars of Greek and Roman times, and lights put in the window as a symbol of hospitality are all evoked by the flaming chalice.

Throughout World War II, this symbol guided refugees to safety on travel documents, business cards, and in the windows of otherwise hidden offices.

After the war, the flaming chalice gained popularity as a symbol of Unitarianism, and then later of Unitarian Universalism. The ritual lighting of the chalice in UU worship became widespread in our congregations in the 1970s.

Our flaming chalice is still a symbol of life-saving welcome. Where it burns, its light beckons us all to live up to our shared principles and participate in the liberation of all people.