Ancestors

About a month ago, as I was driving around rural North Carolina, I was struck by something.

Graveyards.

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. There were graveyards all around.

And in the rural Southeast where I was driving around last month, there are graveyards all around.

But here, where I live, in rocky, dry, mountainous, high desert Colorado… you have to know where to look to find a cemetery.

I think that matters. Spiritually.

Our relationship to our ancestors (or lack thereof) is at least somewhat shaped by our proximity to the reminders of their existence.

Seeing a cemetery is, for me, a subtle reminder that our stories are not only our own. We are part of a long, long tale of family and neighbors. The lives represented by the dashes on those gravestones are part of the story that shaped us.

I was reading recently about some Hindu celebrations that happen around the world this time of year that honor ancestors. One is called Pitru Paksha, and I don’t know much about it, to be honest, but I do know that it is a period meant to remember and honor departed ancestors.

In a little over a month, many families in Mexico and around the world will celebrate Dia de Los Muertos. Another autumn cultural tradition of reconnecting with the people of the past.

It’s striking to me that some cultures deliberately put the dead where the living can encounter them.

What if we paused more often, in our busy lives, and considered those who have come before us? How might that shape us differently? How might that widen our hearts? How might that give us hope?

We are not the first or the last.

People lived and laughed and loved and lost well before we were here. People wrestled with God, doubted, deconstructed, and reconstructed long before we were here. People were frustrated by government, threatened by a rapidly changing world, tired of war, and afraid of too-powerful leaders long before we were here.

People worried about their children.

People missed their dearly departed.

People wondered if they had enough.

People fell in love with the wrong people and the right people. They lost friends. They changed their minds. They screwed things up. They started over.

People stared into the darkness and wondered what would happen next.

We are not the first or the last.

And so we are invited: To know God as we’re able. To live wholly. To love our neighbors and our enemies. To give with our whole heart. To share sacred connection. To do our best.

And to pass by a graveyard with gratitude.

Knowing that we are because they were.

Giving our imperfect lives grace as we acknowledge their imperfect lives.

Cherishing each day that we get to pass by the graveyard.