All Saints All the Time
I can't let All Saints Day go by without a notice. This religious holiday took on new meaning for me when I read Frederick Buechner's definition of a saint: "In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a pocket handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints."
Buechner, a Presbyterian minister who has spent most of his career writing novels and inspirational memoirs, doesn't confine the word saint to those few people throughout history who have been held up for that honor by their religious communities. No, he's more interested in the communion of saints, living and dead: "Saints are essentially life-givers. To be with them is to become more alive." That could be any of us.
Catholic sister Joan Chittister calls saints "ones so possessed by an internal vision of divine goodness that they give us a glimpse of the face of God in the center of the human." That certainly relates to the theme of today's New Morning,
The Church Within.
Actually, I caught glimpses of saints throughout the show: Joel Sindelar, the director of the "Churchless Church Choir," who is helping others find their souls through singing; novelist Sue Monk Kidd who reminds us that if we are still, the sacred rises up around us; Sama Wareh, the henna artist, who by example shows us that we can become more alive when we connect with our creativity and nature; and Rabbi Zig Zag and his club of Jewish motorcycle riders, who as a community are bringing the spiritual into the physical and having a lot of fun as they go along.
Every November 1, I remember some of the well-known saints by reading
this litany by Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB. But this year I'm also going to watch for the saints among us. Because when somebody drops a handkerchief, I just have to pick it up.