Finding Faith ... in a more divinely inspired way of living into creation

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on Nov. 3, 2023.

The Rev. Devlyn Brooks at his home church, Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn.

By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks

This week, our religious tradition celebrated All Saints Day, the day in our faith that we honor the “saints” who died since last year’s observation. And, of course, this year’s ritual has taken on new meaning for me as our mother is one of our saints who passed this year.

The loss is still raw for our family, but I will appreciate the opportunity to pay tribute to mom as one of the saints on whose shoulders I stand. After all, she undoubtedly had a great deal to do with me becoming an ordained minister.

Saints in our brand of protestantism include all of the baptized people of God, living and dead, and whom we believe make up the corporate body of Jesus Christ. But the more I study the spiritual traditions of our neighbors to the south, I wonder if we couldn’t learn from their similar celebration of Día de Muertos, or “Day of the Dead.”

While I do cherish our All Saints Day tradition of honoring saints who have passed for their contributions to our own faith, the celebration seems so binary to me. Our loved ones have passed; they’re living days are done; and we honor them once a year to say thanks.

This seems shallow compared to Día de Muertos, in which people still honor their loved ones, but in addition they celebrate the deceased for their journeys back to our present reality here on earth through our collective memories.

In this tradition, the believers don’t pack away their loved ones as if they are relics. No, they welcome their deceased loved ones into their daily lives as a reminder that love and cherished memories outlive the physicality of dying! Wonderful! Exactly how I want to celebrate mom! 

So the more I learn about Día de Muertos, the more I am loving the tradition.

In our Western culture, which draws clear lines, we struggle with death. After all, death is the antithesis of life, a finality. And there is nothing more we celebrate than life, full of vim and vigor and hard-charging accomplishments. So our mortality haunts us, and it’s just best to leave our dead ones in the ground where they can’t remind us of our own mortality.

Our practice of All Saints Day seems to promote that binary approach: One day to celebrate the saints who died, neatly packaged. Now we can move on!

Día de Muertos seemingly is a tradition that celebrates something much different, calling out to our deceased saints and inviting them into our land of the living. Because, thanks to our memories and being the people we are because our loved ones shaped us, they never actually leave us.

And I think that is a much more divinely inspired way of living into God’s creation than giving into our limited, Westernized, dichotomous brains. Amen.

Devlyn Brooks is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and serves Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He also works for Forum Communications Co. He can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com for comments and story ideas.