All the Saints

We usually do not have chapel on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are reserved for forum where speakers visit, important issues are discussed, and we continue to expand our minds with new knowledge and perspectives. But today is different. Today is All Saints Day and so we gathered in the chapel to pause and remember the saints we have lost this year.

It was a beautiful service. The names of those close to us in our community who have died over the past year were read aloud, a bell tolled, and a stone slipped into the waters of baptism. I had submitted names of those dear to me in their honor and memory. I have been relieved this week to find my spirits lifted and my soul at rest and so I was surprised this morning. I was surprised when the all too familiar tears flowed as the names were called out to the heavens.

Lucy Smith. My Great Aunt who died the day before Thanksgiving last year. Aunt Lucy was the "crazy aunt." She wasn't actually crazy, but she always sent the most bizarre Christmas gifts often wrapped in the shape of the contents, padded with meat packing styrofoam, and covered in layers of tape...a Smith family trademark. She was also a woman with a fabulous New England accent, a cat named Fred, and a huge heart. Praise God for Lucy.

Nancy Zinn. A very recent and sudden death on my Dad's side of the family. She had a stroke and in one blink of an eye she was gone from our lives. A clot of some sort traveled to her brain and stole her life. Undetected and unanticipated. She leaves behind her husband David and her son Darrell (30 yrs). The news came on the same day our CTS community lost a dear faculty member, Ginger Kaney, to cancer. Also the day, eyes clouded with tears, I fell down the stairs and deeply bruised my arm. It was all so much that day and I don't know that I ever cried for Nancy...until today. She was a loving woman and mother. She was one who wrote to me while I was in Kenya with words of encouragement and support. Praise God for Nancy.

Pina Grace Wambui. I met Pina when we took communion to her home in Kenya. She was a member of the Sigona congregation in Nderi parish. She contracted AIDS from her mother and at the age of 14, just a few weeks after I met her sweet soul, AIDS took Pina away. We all know of the AIDS crisis. We know of it, we sit on our sofas, or at the dinner table and shake our heads hoping it will end. Thousands of miles away, it became so much more real to me. AIDS suddenly had a face, a name, and a heart of faith. We buried Pina in a field behind her house. Traditional there to be buried at home rather than a cemetary. Friends and family crowded around, and I watched with deep humility while Pina's friends put rope under her casket and lowered her into her grave by hand. I knew Pina for a short time. We shared a name, Wambui, we shared a smile, and we shared a faith. Praise God for Pina.

When my tears had passed, a friend reminded me about the importance of breath. So in the midst of a deep reminder of the loss I have felt this year and the loss I have seen others feel this year, I will keep breathing. Breathing deep and remembering with thanksgiving all the saints surrounding us in the great cloud of witnesses.