Solemnity of All Saints

Like most children, I loved imagining what I would do when I grew up. And lots of my imagination came from cartoons, books and my own early experiences with particular hobbies or careers.

My first memory is that I wanted to be He-Man.  My brother and my best friend, who was also a boy, wanted me to be She-rah, He-Man's significantly less cool counterpart. But I wouldn’t have it. I grabbed my sword and mask and together we were three He-Mans.

Later in my childhood, I watched a movie about baseball and wanted to be the first female professional baseball player. I had no skill for baseball and started playing soccer, and then of course, I wanted to be a professional soccer player. In high school, my dad got a camera, taught me how to develop film and I imagined that soon enough I’d be traveling the world as a photographer for National Geographic.

Those big dreams got a little more difficult as time went on.  I remember in junior high school lamenting to my mom that I was not one of the best soccer players on my team.  She responded, “Well, you don’t practice. What do you expect?” What a blow - accurate but oh I was mad at her.  I just wanted to be good, I wanted it instantly and with ease.

Later as I was preparing for college and wondering what I would major in I told my dad that I wanted to be a photographer but I didn’t want to take classes on developing film or other aspects of photography.

He told me; I wouldn’t get to immediately become a famous photographer. I’d have to do the dirty work like developing film plus I needed to learn all those details to really understand how to capture a photo. He told me it would be a long time before National Geographic was paying for me to fly across the world.

Another kick to the gut, “What, I have to learn and do the grunge work before fame?”

Growing up is hard. The excitement only gets you so far.  Eventually you have to start working for it.

That’s been a hard lesson for me to learn, it still is.  I love being the best - I don’t like working to get there.

Our faith life is similar.

When I was in high school, I got involved in the Charismatic Movement within the Catholic Church.  The first reading really takes me back to the energy of that time. I remember being at national conferences, absolutely packed auditoriums for Eucharistic Adoration, our hands raised, singing, some falling over in the Spirit, others talking in tongues. It felt like a brief taste of heaven. But of course, we eventually had to get back on our buses and go back to our lives…go back to being a mediocre soccer player with seemingly very little chance of being recognized as the youngest, most talented photographer.

In our first reading, we are told there’s this immense crowd - from every nation, tribe and language all gathered worshiping God. This reading hits me particularly hard today and fills me with longing.

In this era of social distancing - every interaction carries a risk for us and separates us in a way that most of us have never faced.  And another kind of distancing that is also destroying us, we are a world so deeply divided into our tribes and nations, we select the news station that reports to our preferred slant, we read the blogs that speak to our ideologies and deem the other’s among us ignorant or downright evil.

I’m not sure if we’ve ever been further from this image painted in our first reading.

But I don’t think we should stop imagining it.

Imagination is powerful. It can give us the desire; it can propel us to make choices that make what once seemed imaginary real.

I wanted to be He-Man so long ago because I wanted to be the hero, the battle between good and evil spoke to my heart even at five years old.  Also, swords were cool.

I wanted to be a soccer player because I loved playing even if I didn’t practice.  I loved running as I kicked the ball along the field.  I rarely made a goal but when I did, it was a high unlike any other.

I wanted to be a photographer because my Dad was a photographer.  Because he bought me my first camera and showed me how what I saw in the lens could become an image hung on someone’s wall.

In all of these instances, I was so lucky to have the images, the stories, the movies, the people to help me imagine…to teach me, to allow me to try, to practice and to explore if I had the desire to make my imagination into my reality.

Imagination is often seen as a childish game but it is actually a skill and one that is very significant to our faith.

We can easily be tempted and even convinced that this reality of social distancing, ideological separation, systemic poverty and racism is the only thing that is real.

But it isn’t, not if we believe the readings we heard today.

Not if we really live into today, All Saints Day.

I wonder, right now can we put ourselves in another reality, just as real as this one,but that doesn’t have the same physicality we are used to. Imagine for a moment, that above us, or maybe all around us and in us, the saints who came before us are gathered - every nation, tribe, and language joyful praising God - hearts on fire.

Dorothy Day links arms with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa sings beside Martin Luther King Jr., my Aunt Mary smiles at your sister, your dad joyfully hugs my grandfather, your best friend rocks my friend’s son.  And all together they turn to God, their hearts, minds and souls finally seeing God as God truly is and finally seeing themselves as they truly are - beautiful, beloved, cherished children of God.

This isn’t just a fantastical story.  This is the faith we profess.  This is the hope we cling to.  That what we see right now is not the only truth, reality contains so much more than what our limited senses can perceive.

We must imagine, we need to tell all the stories, paint all the pictures, read all the poetry that reminds us that we are truly surrounded by all these saints, all of our beloved. And that our grandmothers and grandfathers from centuries past are whispering into our ears, “Keep going sweet girl. Keep going my son. You are so much more than what you see.”

In our second reading we are assured that we are God’s children but we are also told that someday we will be like God even though that’s incomprehensible right now.

Imagine that…you are God’s child and just as our children are like us in many ways, we are like God.  How might that impact your reality right now?

We need to imagine what that would be like, just like a child imagines being a professional soccer player. What might if feel like to be like God?

I think I’d feel whole, I would feel connected, I wouldn’t be afraid, I wouldn’t wonder anymore who I should be, I would know that who I am is exactly enough, I’d be courageous, I’d love with all of my heart, I’d reach out to the stranger and not fear their rejection, I’d want goodness and kindness for every person, I’d sit outside and watch the sunset and never once feel guilty that I should be doing something else or want to glance at my phone.

Truly, I cannot imagine a better way of existing in the world than that. 

In our Gospel we are told who will live within the kingdom of God…the grieving, the meek, the peacemakers, those that lay their lives down for God’s sake.

These are people who are living what they have imagined…they are practicing what it means to be children of God and even to be like God - whole, connected, courageous, compassionate.

The Beatitudes remind us that to live in the kingdom of God we need to first believe that it is already around us. To use our imagination to connect us to this reality beyond our current limited sight - God is here, the saints are here singing God’s praise and holding us up, we are children of God.

And then the Beatitudes invite us to practice. Like a young girl who dreams of capturing the most beautiful images of our world on her camera and devotes her life to honing those skills.  We too must practice.

We need to sit in quiet rooms and humbly tell God that we desire to be present to God’s kingdom.

We need to read Scripture, listen to music, go for long walks to connect ourselves to our truest reality - God’s beloved.

We need to be meek enough to reach out to someone else, to recognize that our ideas and worldview also has its flaws.

We need to be courageous enough to learn about poverty and racism, to understand white privilege and hand our power over to those who have been stripped of theirs.

We need to speak words of peace even when we think we are justified to speak words of malice.

And ultimately, we must daily remember that we profess a faith in a God who was crucified for curing on Sabbath’s, for welcoming women into his inner circle, for dining with sinners and then we must go and do the same. It is then that we will be like God and it is then that we will be fostering God’s kingdom into this world.

So today as we celebrate All Saints Day, let us remember that what we see in the here and now is only partial and we are being invited to courageously imagine what is just beyond our sight and daily practice so that one day we might discover that what we imagine is actually what has always been…God is here, we are God’s beloved, and we are not alone…there is a whole crowd of witnesses singing God’s praises into our ears.