Sunday after All Saints’ Day
November 6, 2005
Christ Church, Covington
“There was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from
all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne…” (Rev.
7:9).
I’m not given much to visions, but I do have an imagination; and it seemed to me
last Monday evening on my way home that past and present drew a bit closer
together for a time, briefly occupying some of the same space. I’m prone to
suggestion, of course, and it was All Saints’ Eve, a time long recognized as
bringing the past back into focus; the clarity of the evening air, the proximity
of our historic chapel, and an early twilight helped create a certain
atmosphere, which I’ll readily admit. Nevertheless, the past is never much
further away than the last corner we turned, and so it seemed to me that the
hiss of a gas jet, the crisp rustle of crinolines, and the outline of a tall
beaver hat, announced the arrival of our ancestors: an earlier Covington, a
nineteenth century town, because that’s as far back as we go. It was almost as
if those who came before us, the citizens who suffered in the Yellow Fever
epidemic of 1847 (which carried off Covington’s Episcopal priest, by the way),
or the folks who weathered the crisis when the Orleans, Jackson, and Great
Northern Railroad bypassed us in 1854, not to mention those who lived through
war and occupation in the 1860s and 1870s (which closed Christ Church), were
appearing now, on All Saints’ Eve, to encourage us. Imagination, perhaps, but
it’s something to conjure with, isn’t it?
The past helps balance us out, whether we’re weathering crises or not, because
it gives us an anchor and some perspective. If we live in the present only, we
impoverish ourselves, because each of us has a history, a background, a context
that’s bigger than what’s happening now. The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote,
“One should appreciate, after all, the advantages of one’s origins. Its worth
lies in the power it gives one to detach oneself from the present moment”
(Native Realm). And, I would add, part of its power is the foundation it gives
us to move ahead into the future.
“The advantage of one’s origins”: this is part of what Christians acknowledge
when they celebrate All Saints’. Our forebears in the faith are an anchor for
us, providing perspective and wisdom. Our Lady Saint Mary, the Apostles Peter
and Paul, and the ancient teachers of the faith, are part of that “great
multitude” in Revelation that no one can count, living examples to us because
they are alive in Christ. Perhaps if we use our imaginations we can add to this
company our spiritual forebears by the banks of the Bogue Falaya, the saints who
built our community of faith. As we move ahead into the future, they’re not much
further away from us than the last corner we turned.
John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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