For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him should not perish, but would have everlasting life... ~John 3:16
http://youtu.be/of9hY6Az2jo Russian Orthodox Chant-The Lord’s Prayer
http://youtu.be/K8DRP3O22Xk Gregorian Monks - My Heart Will Go On
When I was a young girl in school, I remember reading Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and there was something about that story that made me want to go to the place where it happened. In 1998, as a special mini-vacation, my husband took me to Salem, MA to celebrate Hallowmas. I will write about the Halloween experience next year. It didn’t come yesterday for some reason. Sometimes, it doesn’t, and that’s okay. It just leaves a special story for another day. Today, I want to recall the experience we had in Salem on All Saints' Day – November 1, 1998, because it was nothing shy of a glorious, divine Sunday filled with God’s grace and a few special blessings.
As background: All Saints' Day is the second day of Hallowmas or the Triduum of All Hallows, which in Western society encompasses the observances of All Hallows’ Eve [Halloween], All Saints' Day [All Hallows], and All Souls’ Day — October 31st-November 2nd of each year. Hallowmas is the time to remember the dead – those faithfully deceased Christians as well as the saints and martyrs. Historically, in the Christian faith, All Hallow’s Eve represented a time when the veil between the two worlds known as the material world and the afterlife was at its thinnest. In medieval times, people spent the day fasting then as evening approached, in vigil of prayer as they prepared for the following day of remembrance. Candles were lit and left at cemeteries along with flowers, which is where the names: Vigil of All Saints or Night of Lights came to be known.
All Saints' Day is a feast day as well as a religious holy day. All Hallows Day as it is also known seeks to honor those blessed, un-canonized souls. The liturgical color of this day is white.
The last day of Hallowmas is All Souls’ Day ~ Commemoration of the Faithfully Departed. The focus on this day is to honor ALL faithful Christians who have departed the material world. As part of the traditional services of this remembrance the Office for the Dead – a prayer is read combined with scriptures, many of them taken from the book of Psalms. In recent years, All Saints' Day and All Souls’ Day have been combined into one remembrance. I don’t know if I’ve explained this all perfectly, but it’s a small overview of how this traditional celebration works, but please research it fully for a compete understanding of the history and traditions of it all. The wearing of masks on All Hallow’s Eve has symbolic meanings that I’ve not gone into, but it’s all very interesting and fascinating to discover the reasoning behind it.
I can tell you that the Halloween celebration in Salem, MA is CRAZY good fun, and I can’t wait to tell you that story, but for all the wild adventure of that Saturday evening, the sacred, peaceful remembrance that came the following Sunday morning was every bit as good. There is a beautiful Greek Orthodox Church in Salem called Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church, and I told my husband that we had to go to the services there that Sunday. I think it was one of the highlights of that trip for me.
We were warmly greeted and welcomed, and because it was a special church service that day, it was explained to us by one of the greeters that we could light a candle in remembrance of a dearly departed family member, and if we wanted to give a love offering we could have their name read during the special prayer for the dead. That moment was a gift for us, because seven months prior, I had miscarried our son, William David Bosher-Perran, in the early stages of my second trimester. We had never had any kind of formal recognition of him, and to be given the opportunity to do so on such a special day was a blessed gift to us. We wrote his name down and gave a love offering, then proceeded to the front of the church where the alter of candles was laid out and lit one in his memory. I remember a feeling of peace came over me in that moment as Tom and I held hands and offered that gesture of remembrance for our son.
The service was beautiful. It was unlike anything I’d ever participated in before. Parts of it were in Greek and other parts in English. Some of it reminded me of the Catholic services that I’d been to with a friend of mine in college who practiced that faith. The air was heavy with the sweet fragrance of incense and the glow from all of the lit candles — it was, quite simple put, lovely.
They had a moment of silent meditation, and I remember hearing the theme song from the movie Titanic run through my mind. Tom and I had taken my sister, Pam, to see that movie the weekend before I miscarried William. That song stayed with me — namely, the lyric, “love can touch us one time, and last for a lifetime, and never let go til we’re gone...” Yes. That’s exactly what my love for William had done to me, and that’s the thought that went through my mind as prayer in that silent moment of holy reverence, just before they began the prayer for the dead.
I remember Tom’s arm moved from being around me down to take hold of my hand as that ceremony began. We kept our heads bowed as each name was read, until the priest said the name of our son: William David Bosher-Perran.
I felt a “hah” release from me when I heard his name offered up and tears come, as I turned and looked at Tom who had opened his eyes and was looking at me with his own tears. We smiled at each other and squeezed hands. It was the first time anyone outside of our family had formally and ceremoniously acknowledged the existence of our son – our first child. It was a most precious gift.
We left Saint Nicholas’ and drove over to Concord, MA for another “mother lode” experience. We went to see Walden’s Pond where Henry David Thoreau had lived in a small, one-room cabin for two years on the North Shore of the pond.
I remember sitting on the embankment up from the pond and just looking out at it, while Tom went into the woods to look for Thoreau’s cabin. I was too taken with the water view that was in front of me–surrounded by a backdrop of trees that looked to be aflame in all of its autumn splendor of gold, orange, yellow, red and green hues. It was breathtaking, and I couldn’t move. I had to sit down and slowly take it the magnificence of it all. I remember thinking as I looked at the beauty of what was before me that THIS image was a perfect argument for those who don’t believe in the existence of God. I don’t know how you can’t believe in something higher and greater than us at work, when you witness something of that brilliant magnitude. It’s not mere happenstance! There is a divine order at work here, at least for me. When I looked at Walden’s Pond, it was one more confirmation of that for me.
It was a beautiful fall day and I whispered my thanks and gratitude to God for it, because I was raised that when you receive a gift, you always express your thanks. That’s what November 1, 1998 was: a gift all the way around.
Tom and I stopped at a little Mom and Pop shop along the road and had a cup of soup, a sandwich and a slice of pie for a late lunch-early supper. Then, he asked me what I wanted to do next?
“Let’s drive to Maine!”
“Are you kidding?” he asked in disbelief.
I’m sure he thought I wanted to go antiquing, which is not a bad guess. Our time, however, was limited, and I wanted to see as much of New England as possible.
“Just to say we did it!” I told him. “Just to the state line, then we’ll turn around and drive back to Salem.”
So, that’s exactly what we did. We knew once we got to the state line of Maine that we were definitely going to have to go back one day and visit that state. {We did – it’s heaven on earth for us!} I tell you, there are few things lovelier than New England in the autumn – VERY few.
Our trip to Salem and Concord, MA in the autumn of 1998 remains one of our favorite vacations. From Halloween in the Witch City to All Saints' Day at Saint Nicholas’ church to the afternoon spent enjoying nature at Walden’s Pond then continuing on with our Sunday afternoon drive up to Maine, that entire weekend can best be summed up in the words of Thoreau’s Walden: Or, Life in the Woods , when he spent his own time in that glorious region:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
Indeed...
Walden's Pond In Autumn
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