I always cry on All Saints Day.  The candle light, the ringing bell and the reading of the names of the members of the church where I serve just rolls over my tough “‘get it done” attitude and I cry.  You see, when I am the Pastor helping a family at the time of death I have to keep my emotions in check.  I keep my eye on the horizon rather than down at the specifics of death.  I know the family needs my strength and my vulnerability to help them through the days of dying and death.  I may weep a bit with the family but my feelings are a controlled boil, rather than an overflowing, bubbling mess.  As soon as a funeral or memorial service is over my eye is still focused on the horizon of doing the needful things which have been delayed during the bereavement process.  So my grief is often delayed until later, but most of the time later never comes.  Grieving isn’t always convenient and it certainly does not make appointments.

So on All Saints Day, as I read the seven names of our dearly departed, I wept.  It probably was not visible to my congregation, but I felt each name inside my heart.  The longer I am blessed to serve this congregation the harder these moments become.  Yet, I know, in the hardness is also the blessing.  The chance to walk beside families in time of death and dying is sacred work.  

The harder work of a pastor is after the funeral and after all the family of the deceased have returned home.  The remaining family who experienced the death so near have on going grief and mourning to do–this is the hardest work of all.  So I close with my favorite line of this hymn–“For all the saints who from their labors rest.”