Somewhere Else

a devotional for autumn

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Thank you for joining us!

Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:

Okay, I confess, I’m going to cheat a little. First, I would like to highlight a comment from last Monday’s devotional, and then I would like to highly recommend you go and read the responses to last week’s discussion. They were fantastic!

On Monday’s devotional, Nancy Dean commented this:

As we rush through our lives, it’s so good to take stock sometimes and enjoy the Season we’re in. Autumn has always been my favorite to do just that. As you wrote, some of Summer still lingers and sometimes a hint of Winter is in the air. But best of all the fragrant days reach out to us to savor each moment to reflect, plan and move forward with purpose, hope and love.

I loved reading this, Nancy! Thank you so much for your wise comment!

And for even more wisdom from readers like you, I invite you to check out the phenomenal responses to our discussion here.

If you want a chance to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!

Now, on with this week’s devotional…

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Today's poem is directly inspired by the work and philosophy of John O'Donohue, specifically the book Walking in Wonder and his thoughts on absence.

the prophet said
that presence is not 
the opposite
of absence,

vacancy is. 

absence has its own
presence:

you are not here,
you are not nowhere,

you are somewhere 
else. 

perhaps that is what we mean
when we call the dead
dearly departed--

they are absent. 
they are not vacant. 
they are simply 
somewhere 
else. 

perhaps there is a table
just like mine
somewhere else,
plates and cups
forks and knives, 
chairs aplenty
and fragrant food,

a table just like mine
in the place where the beloved go
when they are not here,

to sit and sing together
like we did
before they left. 

If they are old enough, most cultures around the world follow some version of the idea that the dead do not truly leave us—especially the ones we loved in life—and certain elements can draw them closer to us.

For the Celts, that belief was seasonal, and we are coming up upon the most famous echo of that idea: Samhain, which is one of the main foundations of our modern Hallowe’en.

At Samhain (pronounced sow-inn, with the “sow” rhyming with “cow”) the ancient Celts believed that the veil between the world of humans and the world of supernatural beings, including the ghosts of the departed dead, thinned to the point where crossing over was possible, even by accident.

This had both positive and negative consequences. On and around Samhain you had to be on your guard, lest you be tricked and kidnapped by darker spirits who were able to reach out and grab you during this “thin time”. But you could also feel the love and devotion of those who had gone before you, and you could express your love back to them through various means, including lighting a candle in your window and literally setting a place at your table for them to join you.

Our modern world (and Protestant Christianity) has often focused so much on pursuing both holy and profane ideas of earthly or heavenly success that we have all but learned to ignore death and grief. To our detriment, I think. Because death is an inevitability, and we stand on the shoulders of millions upon millions who have come before us. No one enters life without signing up to be someone else’s ancestor and the next in a long line of descendants.

One should not meditate on death to the point where one forgets to live, of course, but to ignore it altogether is neither healthy nor holy.

As we move closer to Hallowe’en, we are invited to consider what it looks like for each of us to recognize those who have gone before, to set a place at the table for them, and to express our gratitude for their lives: their pain, their accomplishments, and the way they loved.

For those of us who are Protestants, this task can be tougher than it is for other belief systems. We are taught, either directly or through implication, not to dwell on the dead. But there is a difference between worshipping ghosts and respecting the legacy of our forbearers.

Where does that line sit? I cannot tell you. This glorious season of the ever-thinning veil is a profound opportunity to find it for yourself.

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