Feast of All Saints: Sanctuary among the Shelves

A Gathering of Spirits © Jan L. Richardson

Six months into our marriage, my husband and I have recently found ourselves in the midst of a wondrous phenomenon: we are home at the same time from our respective travels, and we are, for a little while, free of the major deadlines that we lived with in the first few months following our wedding. To celebrate this, we are throwing ourselves into some activities that we finally have time for. Like buying furniture. And unpacking boxes. Having spent the past seventeen years living either in a parsonage, which was mostly furnished, or in a very cozy studio apartment, I now own more furniture than I ever have in my life. We’ve taken delivery on a sofa, comfy chairs, and a dining table. I am delighted with all of them, but I will tell you which new furnishings I am the most thrilled to have:

Bookcases.

We now have one whole wall of our living room lined with bookcases. So I spent much of the weekend happily sorting through many boxes of books as Gary unpacked them onto two tables. Nearly half of the books had not seen the light of day in more than a decade. I had put them into storage when I moved into a small space, not anticipating that a couple of years of studio apartment living would stretch into more than a dozen. Although a fair number of the stored books are now in the large stack that will be sent on to other homes, there are lots of treasures that I was delighted to see again and put on the new shelves.

Many of the books bear inscriptions from the friends or family members who gave them to me, often during significant transitions or other memorable events. I can trace much of my history through these books: a copy of A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six, inscribed by my friend Janse on—of course—my sixth birthday; a Bible from my parents “on the occasion of your 12^th birthday and your church membership”; a volume of poetry by Robert Frost from my friend Eric, who wrote, “…I hope that turning 21 was wonderful, and I also hope that it pales in comparison to the future.” My shelves now hold the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, a classic of Norwegian literature given by my friend Tone when I spent a month with her and her family in Oslo, two years after she lived with my family as an exchange student; several beautiful children’s books (I collect them) that my parents gave me the night that the Conference Board approved me for ordination; and a copy of The Women’s Bible Commentary that Brenda—an enduring friend from college who, even after living with me for our three years of seminary, still likes me—gave me when we graduated.

There are texts that testify to the ordinary days as well: among the many books that Brenda (a book-giver and inscriber par excellence) has given me across our years of friendship is a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House, whose college-era inscription reads, in part, “Here it is…the book that Eric and I passed back and forth while you drove on one of our road trips.” And there are books that hold harder pieces of my story, their pages bearing words laid down by old loves or friends who have died. Some of the books I have held most dear are those given by a friend over a long stretch of years who later removed herself from my life. I placed them on the shelves, wondering at the absence to which their presence bears witness.

These books enclose not only my own history but layers of family history as well: a tiny Methodist hymnal that belonged to a great-great-grandmother; books bearing my grandparents’ signatures; and several shelves’ worth of volumes of theology and biblical studies bequeathed to me by Eulalie Ginn, a Methodist leader in Florida who was a friend to several generations of Richardsons and whom I knew as “Aunt Eulalie.” There is a leather-bound Bible bearing the names of a beloved great-aunt and of her husband, who died before I was born. And in the pages of a novel given to my grandfather by his mother, I found a card stating that the bearer—my great-grandfather—is entitled to draw books from the public library in Jacksonville, Florida, until February 9, 1909. (The card also urges the holder to “Please give prompt notice of a change of residence, or of contagious disease.”)

I will continue to sort and shelve for the next few days, taking up these generations of books and gathering them in the same place for the first time. There is a deep sense of satisfaction and wholeness that comes in seeing the books that span my history all together now, shoulder to shoulder in their new home. I imagine them chatting with one another after we’ve turned out the lights for the night, whispering stories from the pages of their history, and mine.

It strikes me that spending time among the volumes is fine and fitting work to do as we cross through this stretch of the calendar that includes the Feast of All Saints, which we celebrate today. An occasion in which we remember the beloved dead, All Saints’ Day rests upon earlier pre-Christian festivals that commemorated the ancestors. One of these festivals is Samhain, the ancient Celtic celebration that occurs around November 1. A major festival in the Celtic wheel of the year, Samhain both marks the new year and is also a time of looking to the past and remembering those who have gone before. We derive some of our Halloween customs from the Celtic belief that at this time of the year, the veil between worlds becomes permeable—what’s known as a thin place.

For many years, this trio of days that we’re moving through right now—Halloween, the Feast of All Saints, and the Feast of All Souls—have been a thin place in the rhythm of my own year, an occasion to gather up memories and to contemplate those who have been part of my path. This turning in the year reminds me that the veil thins toward those who lived in the past but also toward my own past, so well marked by these books that grace our new shelves. I carry thin places in my own self, spaces in which layers of memory become permeable and open to one another.

These feast days invite us to remember that although it’s not wise to dwell too much in the past, it can do our soul good to pay it a visit, to see where and whom we have come from, and how this might inspire us as we dream our way toward the path ahead. In these days, where does your memory turn? Who is part of the “communion of saints” that you celebrate on this day? Who lingers close to you in this season? Who or what haunts you? What layers of your history might God bring to the surface, perhaps offering wisdom and insight that you couldn’t perceive at the time? How might your remembering help inspire your dreaming about the path ahead of you?

In these days of memory and celebration, blessings and peace to you.

Posted on Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 3:54 PM. Filed under Sacred Time.