Have We Forgotten How to Mourn?

I've been thinking about rituals lately.

Perhaps it's because All Saints' Day is approaching, or because autumn reminds us that everything changes. The trees are nearly bare, the flowers have wilted, and the earth is preparing for its long winter rest.

Last week, I wrote about the trees letting go of their leaves without apology. About the garden growing quiet and the life that continues beneath the frozen ground.

I've been thinking about that again, particularly about the ways we mark the changing seasons of our own lives.

I remember taking an entire course on rituals in seminary. A rabbi taught it, and I was fascinated by the richness of Jewish traditions. Rituals surround birth, coming of age, marriage, death, and the changing seasons. Even the ordinary rhythms of the week are marked by ritual.

Of course, Christianity has its own rich traditions, but that course made me realize how deeply human our need for ritual really is.

For thousands of years, people have gathered to mark life's transitions. Long before churches, calendars, or organized religion as we know it, people buried their dead, gathered around fires, celebrated the changing seasons, and found ways to acknowledge life's mysteries.

Rituals gave shape to experiences that were often too big for words.

And I wonder whether we're losing the art of ritual.

We live in a society that values convenience, efficiency, and independence. We move quickly from one thing to another, filling our calendars and finding ways to make life a little easier.

Somewhere along the way, many of our shared rituals have become less important.

Even the way we mark death is changing. Traditional funerals are becoming less common, and some people choose not to gather at all.

I understand that traditions change. Not every ritual is meaningful to everyone, and some deserve to be reimagined.

But I wonder what we lose when we stop marking the important moments of our lives.

We seem to have become very good at carrying on, but I'm not convinced we've become any better at grieving.

We live in a world where suffering is everywhere. We scroll past tragedy, hear about another death, another disaster, another terrible loss, and somehow continue with our day.

Perhaps we've become a little numb to it all.

And when loss enters our own lives, the world doesn't stop. We have arrangements to make, paperwork to complete, responsibilities waiting, and an unspoken expectation that we'll eventually get back to normal.

But grief doesn't work that way.

We can push it aside, keep ourselves busy, or convince ourselves that we're doing just fine. And then, sometimes when we least expect it, grief finds us again.

A familiar song. An empty chair. A smell that reminds us of someone we love.

Rituals don't take away our grief. They were never meant to.

They give us permission to acknowledge it.

To stop for a moment and say that something has changed. Someone was here, and now they are gone. Their life mattered, and so does the sorrow of those who loved them.

Canadian research involving bereaved people has found an association between satisfaction with meaningful mourning rituals and less intense grief over time. It doesn't mean that funerals are necessary for healing, or that there is one right way to mourn. But it reminds us that how we acknowledge loss matters.

And I think the importance of ritual goes beyond what research can measure.

When we gather to remember someone, we are doing something profoundly human. We tell stories, share memories, laugh through tears, and remind one another that grief doesn't have to be carried alone.

We also bear witness.

We acknowledge that a person lived, that their life touched other lives, and that the world is different because they were here.

Perhaps that's what troubles me most about our gradual movement away from ritual.

Not that we're losing particular ceremonies or religious traditions, but that we may be losing some of the ways we make meaning together.

All Saints Day is one of those opportunities to stop.

This past year, our community at Parkdale United Church has said goodbye to people who were part of the fabric of our lives.

Bill Crabbe. Peter Morgan. Evelyn Peterson. Teeya Scholten. Jean Tollefson. Ida Wyllie. Sheila Smith.

Seven names. Seven lives. Countless stories, relationships, memories, and moments that cannot possibly be captured in a few words.

Each brought something of themselves into the world. Each leaves behind people who remember, who love, and who feel their absence.

And so, today, I want to speak their names.

Not because remembering takes away the sadness of losing them, but because they deserve to be remembered.

Because their lives mattered.

Because they were here.

And because, in some small way, speaking their names keeps their stories present among us.

Perhaps remembering is itself a quiet act of resistance in a world that is always urging us forward.

Soon the winter solstice will arrive, and people around the world will once again mark the longest night of the year. Across cultures and centuries, people have gathered to acknowledge the darkness and the gradual return of the light.

I find something beautiful in that.

Not the idea that darkness is something to fear or escape, but that even darkness deserves acknowledgment.

Perhaps grief does too.

We don't need to return to every tradition of the past. But perhaps we need to become more intentional about the moments that deserve our attention.

Because life is not simply a series of days to get through.

There are beginnings worth celebrating, endings worth honouring, and people worth remembering.

And sometimes, the most meaningful thing we can do is stop long enough to notice.