One of the many helpful things my dad would say, God rest his soul, is that if you’re going through a time when you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed, just be sure to take a moment every day to lie back and watch the clouds pass.

Now, this is always good to do, of course. But especially when stress or anxiety or worry or overwhelm comes in and constricts our attention and our sense of what’s possible … just let yourself be interrupted by the great expanse above us and around us. Take a moment to slow down to the pace of the clouds slowly unfurling over the world, flowing over all that unfolds here on earth, casting it all in light and shadow and rainbow.

Though our anxious strivings can constrict our vision, remember we are always in the presence of a holy scope of things wheeling their ancient cycles. Watching the clouds is one way to remind ourselves of this. Watching the ocean waves. Keeping Sabbath to gather and pray and remember the goodness of our God, the God of the ancestors, the God of future generations. 

Pausing to glimpse the wider scope of things can give us a bigger perspective that can free us for wider possibilities, it can give us wisdom and insight for the issues of the moment, it can give us courage and purpose for the lives we are blessed to lead in our day and age.

My dad’s good advice about watching clouds takes on new meaning for me now that he is himself among “the cloud of witnesses.”

It is a wise and helpful practice to pause regularly and consider the perspective of our ancestors, of flesh or spirit, especially the witness of those who said “Yes” in a sincere way to the activity of Divine Love through their lives.  

What would we like to say to them?

What would they have to say to us right now that may speak to all that we’re going through?

What do the best of our ancestors sincerely wish for us? Ancestors of flesh and ancestors of spirit. What wisdom and insight, courage and purpose do our cloud of witnesses wish for us, for the precious lives we are given to live in our day and age?

This practice can bring healing, can bring cleansing tears, can bring courage and faith and wisdom and insight.

Here is a prayer that can help in this practice, by Rev. M Jade Keiser. This can accompany a community ritual such as lighting candles by photographs or mementos representing our dearly departed.

“To the Saints,” by Rev. M Jade Kaiser

 “How do we say thank you?
To you who
dreamed.
fought.
believed.
suffered.
To you who showed us
what incredible things
humans are capable of
under the most
challenging of circumstances.
We kneel to your courage.
We pray to acquire your faith.
We praise God,
the Divine in you.

Are you with us still,
in these days of grief and trial?

Are you companioning us
in this long journey to justice
or
weeping
at the vanity
of it all?

Will you tell us your secrets?
Whisper softly in our direction
about when you wanted to quit,
when you got tired,
when you weren’t sure
if any of it mattered
or if it was worth
the costs.

What kept you going?
Was it your own prayers
to the saints
who went before you?
Did you long to make them proud?

Was it seeing God
in your people
yearning to live
free?

Was it us – the future ones,
now enfleshed?

More important than your answers
is simply your assurance that
you asked the same questions
as budding prophets today
and kept living love
anyway.”

God you have been with us throughout the ages.

You have bore witness to the ways in which the story of us – of all that has come into being – has been woven together piece by piece, life by life.

We recognize, today, that it is because of the saints who have gone before us, that we are. Those who have struggled for justice, who have given so that others may live more freely – we would not be, if not for them.

In remembrance and gratitude, we name the saints who hungered for righteousness and whose sacrifices have contributed to a more just society:

(community names individuals)

Because of those who have loved us – those who have nurtured us, embraced us, celebrated us, or supported us. We are because they were. In remembrance and gratitude, we name the saints who have shaped our lives and being.

(community names individuals)

We also hold in remembrance the ones whose lives were taken by injustice, the ones who were severed from their own sense of belovedness, those who passed on our faith, who gave us art, gave us song, gave us poetry. We are because they were.

Like us, we know they were imperfect too. There is no life that is not messy and contradictory, often betraying the very justice and love we seek to embody. And yet, you, O God, promise that our labor to Love is never made in vain.

Help us to lean on the witness of those who have gone before us, drawing on the love, justice, community, and faith that weaves us together, generation after generation – past, present, and future.

With gratitude and in remembrance we pray,

Amen.

Delivered Sunday, November 3, 2024, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge.

You can watch video of this sermon here.

Image by PayPal.me/FelixMittermeier from Pixabay