November 2015 – A Seminarian’s Letters Home

To the membership of Circle of Faith Parish:

Greetings to you all from Evanston, IL! As I write this, the crops are mostly out. The leaves are their spectacular shades of crimson, gold and orange, but are steadily falling from the trees. Pumpkin spice is slowly giving way to peppermint. We’re in late autumn, the dark of the year, the dying time. November is historically the time when Christians pause to remember those who have gone before us into God’s keeping. It’s the season when churches look ahead to plan for a new year, and figure out what resources we need to make our visions come to be. And it’s the time when we prepare ourselves to let go of the old year, to leave behind what we could have done differently in the weeks and months that have passed, and to commend past, present, and future to God.

I have many fond memories of my grandma teaching me how to clean out the garden and the yard at this time of year to prepare for winter. One thing she always says is that “trees need to go to bed with wet feet.” In a manner of speaking, so do Christians. That’s why our funeral liturgies, and the liturgy of All Saints’ Day, are full of baptismal symbols – we light candles, we pour water in the baptismal font, we dress our altars and ourselves in white. We’ve had quite a few funerals at Circle of Faith this past year, including one point where we had four deaths in six days. Each time, we’ve covered the caskets with the white pall as the sign that this person goes to their grave clothed in Christ.

Looking death in the eye is never a fun thing to do. But we place our beloved dead to rest, as we do our gardens, knowing that we have the promise of next year. We say that promise every Sunday in the Apostles’ Creed – “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” We don’t know what the future will look like, or when we will see it. Nor did any of the saints who have gone before us. But we know that it will come. That was the promise we each received on our baptism day, and a promise God makes will be kept.

Moving through the darkest days of the year accompanied by the saints in light, let us pray for God’s blessing, using these words:

Almighty God, you have knit your people together in one communion in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us grace to follow your blessed saints in lives of faith and commitment, and to know the inexpressible joys you have prepared for those who love you, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. [ELW, All Saints Day]

Your fellow member and pilgrim,

Carl P. Rabbe, M.Div.