Sunday, November 1, 2020
“Nana,” my granddaughter Molly once asked, “does it rain in heaven?” It had been one of those visits when it was raining so we stayed indoors. I wondered what kind of impression she had been given about heaven. Her older sister Kellie looked at her exasperated because of the question. “Don’t be silly. Heaven is above the clouds.” “Oh,” she said. Sometimes a simple answer to what appears to be a complex question works.
Sometimes, of course, there are no simple answers. We are certainly living in a time when answers do not seem so simple. As a society, we are struggling with complex questions on race, economic inequality, immigration, and who and what we want to be.
The traditional reading for All Saints Day is the Matthew passage known as the Beatitudes. But I encourage you to read the version in Luke. It’s starker and does not include many comforting words. But many of those we call saints spoke strong words as well.
Prayer for the Day
You have given us saints as human models for our lives,
May we live as you would have us live.
Be present with us, O God, as we seek to be your servants
As was the One we confess as Lord.
We ask this in the name of him who is our model of service,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.
Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/1182–1226)
In the lives of saints, I look for confirmation of excess. . . . Despite their inhospitable ways, they ferment with unexpected life, like those bleak railway cuttings that host horizontal dandelions. They know there is no passion without pain.
Jeanette Winterson, English novelist (b. 1959)
I lift up my eyes to the hills––
From where my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1–2