Jeremy Taylor Melvin

Reflection – All Souls’ Day

Given at:

Gloucester UU Church

October 30th, 2022

 

I went to Ipswich yesterday.  I grew up there, but go there infrequently.  Or at least not much to the part of town I grew up in.  And when I do, I am usually driving, passing through.  But yesterday I got out of the car and was on foot.

 

It was Hallowe’en there – children were dressed up and trick-or-treating at the shops on Market and Central Streets, and even up on Town Hill, where I was.  Hallowe’en – the time of year when things are turning from one to another, when the veil between the past and the present slips or flutters and spirits can pass through.  The time of year when time itself is changing – the light of day goes so much more quickly into dusk and night, and our pace of living changes with it: inside earlier, living quieter, slower than in the riot and bright bustle of summer.

 

As I walked through the streets and paths that my childhood inhabited, I could feel the past and present slipping in and out, almost moving together, indistinguishable, especially in those moments when I saw something I had not consciously remembered, but recognized immediately and powerfully: that angle of house to the street, that granite step, the feel of that iron railing, even the rhythm of walking up that small rise and then down the other side of it.  So familiar.

 

But so strange.  Even though I was surrounded by people, I was alone.  I knew no one.  All these houses, all just the same – and once so full of those I knew – but all empty, now, to me – the people gone: grown up and moved away, grown old and moved on, even to the beyond.  All the people I knew gone.

 

But I remembered them.  They are still present with me.  Many of their names I may not recall, and even their faces, too, are dim in my mind.  But they all had a hand in forming me and the shape of my life bears their imprint still.  The past has a claim on us because it created us.  Every day we remember it, even if not consciously; we embody it in our selves and express it in our living.  And so for that which was good, we should be thankful, we should be grateful.

 

That is how I felt standing on the rock outcroppings of Town Hill: glad, and grateful.

 

But the light was already slant and the building sides were already dark and I had to go.  But I was not sad to have to leave.  The future has a claim on us, too, and an even greater claim than the past, because we are responsible for it.  We today are forming the future, shaping the coming days.  We best honor those who came before us by crafting it well, even if it takes quite a different shape than the things that were before.

 

And so I walked down Town Hill, the night approaching, in gladness; for I knew another beautiful day, today, would be dawning.