Scattered leaves … that time of year
It is, as Shakespeare puts it, “that time of year … when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/ upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/ bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang” (Sonnet 73), the time of scattered leaves. More than an observation about the passing seasons of the natural world, the images are about ourselves in the passage of time. We behold in ourselves “that time of year”, seeing in ourselves “the twilight of such day as after sunset fadeth in the west”, seeing in ourselves “the glowing of such fire that on the ashes of his youth doth lie.” The dying of nature’s year reminds us of human mortality but also about growing in maturity of understanding and love. Perceiving such changes in ourselves, the poet suggests, “makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
The sonnet sounds a sombre yet reflective note that befits the spiritual meditations belonging to the end of October and the beginning of November with the Feast of All Saints in the Christian understanding. Halloween is the Eve of All Hallows. The saints are the holy ones not by their own presumption but as seen by God. All Saints’ signals the vocation of our humanity. It reminds us of the corporate nature of our lives together in communion with God and with one another. Such is the Communion of Saints.
We are neither cosmic orphans adrift in an indifferent universe, nor isolated individuals separated and apart from one another, alone in our aloneness. We are citizens of an heavenly city, “a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” united in the praise of God as Revelation envisions. This counters the loneliness and fearfulness that defines our current world.
Thus in the season of scattered leaves and in the culture of scattered souls, there is a gathering, a spiritual gathering. Dante, drawing upon the imagery of Vergil’s Aeneid, thinks about that gathering as the scattered leaves of ancient Sybil’s oracles being bound by love “into one volume”. Belit-Sheri’s “book of the dead” in Enkidu’s dream vision of the Sumerian underworld in The Epic of Gilgamesh has been transformed into the book of life inscribing the whole of our humanity. All Saints’ is a profound remembering of who we are and what we are called to be in the sight of God.
All Souls’ Day follows immediately upon All Saints’ and recalls the realities of our common mortality. In some places there is the tradition of naming those from the community who have passed away over the years, an effort at remembering. I cannot think of All Saints’ and All Souls’ without remembering the more than six thousand indigenous children who died in the Residential Schools system in Canada and were buried in unmarked graves, essentially unnamed and unremembered. Our remembering is always finite and limited in contrast to God’s eternal knowing and loving of all souls. Yet that is always the strong comfort and meaning of our remembering; it is about placing all souls in God’s loving embrace and eternal knowing, and so, too, the souls of the forgotten native children.
Such ideas serve to deepen into thought our secular culture’s exuberances about Halloween. ‘To mask or not to mask’ takes on a whole new meaning in the face of COVID but the underlying question remains. Do our masks reveal or conceal our inner desires? Dante’s great spiritual vision in the last canto of the Paradiso signals the idea of the perfection of our desires. “For everything the will has ever sought is gathered there, and there is every quest made perfect, which apart from it falls short.”
That idea and image also belongs to the great gospel reading for All Saints, the Beatitudes of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. They remind us that we are more though not less than the circumstances and events of our times. They literally turn the world on its head by showing us that the world does not fundamentally define the truth and dignity of our humanity. The Beatitudes are the blessednesses, the qualities of soul that belong to the spiritual perfection of our humanity, come what may in the ups and downs, the confusions and changes of our turbulent world.
The first and last Beatitude offer the same promise, “the kingdom of heaven” to both “the poor in spirit” and those who are “persecuted for righteousness’ sake”. The poor in spirit? Who are they? Losers? No. The poor in spirit are those who are not puffed up with self-importance but are humble and open to the wisdom and truth of God. “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” teaches us that while sorrow and suffering are part of the human experience, such things are not forever and need not define us. “Do not weep”, Jesus says to the widow of Nain who has just lost her only son. He means ‘do not keep on weeping’. “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth”. Can there be any stronger counter to the culture of bullies and despots in love with their own power? The meek are the gentle ones who, to use a lovely phrase from the Wisdom of Solomon, exhibit gentleness in wisdom. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled”. What they seek is found in God and in their lives as grounded in God’s will and wisdom. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy”. What a wonderful sense of reciprocity and exchange; mercy for mercy! “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”. Fully attentive to the truth they are undistracted in contrast to our culture of distraction. “Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God”. Peace not strife belongs to that heavenly city of God. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” brings together the beginning and the end of the Beatitudes, “the kingdom of heaven”. It is not just about being persecuted but being persecuted wrongfully where your good is called evil. Yet even that does not define you; being part of the kingdom of heaven does.
Then, as if to drive the Beatitudes home to each of us, Jesus says “Blessed are you” even in the situations of suffering wrongfully, “for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you”. All Saints’ reminds us that we belong to the communion of redemptive suffering. Such ideas provide us with a way to face our current struggles with an inner strength of character. The Beatitudes have their counterpart in other spiritual traditions which seek to awaken us to the wisdom of God as the true ground of our lives. In the time of scattered leaves we are gathered to the Communion of Saints.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, Head of English & ToK teacher,
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy