A wise woman, by the name of K.J. Ramsey writes, “Sadness is the soul’s way of saying, ‘This Matters.’”
As we come to find ourselves at All Saints Sunday, again… there is a new list of saints. A new list of beloved members, friends, family, siblings, parents, and human beings that are no longer with us, as they once were. This time last year I had been on staff for about two months when I read the names of your 2022 beloved saints. I read their names not knowing the people, but I could feel the impact, the drain of their absence through your tears, your weighted grief, and a few emptier seats.
As I prepared for All Saints Sunday this year, I scanned through the names and families I served and cared for and I was surprisingly struck with my own weight of grief. I only had a handful of memories with our beloved saints if any at all, and yet I felt sadness rising to the edge of my eyes, releasing a few tears at a time.
“Sadness isn’t what
makes us stuck.
Silencing sadness
is what stymies us.
Your sadness isn’t
something to solve.
Your sadness is
something to hear.”
-K.J. Ramsey
I have heard the sadness, this time, at the loss of these beautiful, beloved people. Hence, I carry some of that sadness, too, because, “This Matters,” people matter, community matters, the ancestors that came before us and the children to come after us, ALL matter.
So let the sadness arise, I promise it will not last forever, but it will always be a sign that they matter.