On Making Space for Those Passed On

One of my favourite Netflix binges is Shtisel, a three-season series about a Haredi Jewish family. Given my shameful lack of knowledge about this culture, I thought I would give it a try. I'm so glad I did.

Throughout the series, the main characters are often found having conversations with their dead relatives – each of them wrestling with the grief and loss of the one they have loved and lost. In the last scene of the final season (don't worry this doesn't give anything away), Shulem pieces all of these scenes together in one beautiful sentiment…

Bashevis… There's one thing he understood. He wrote a beautiful thing: the dead don’t go anywhere. Every man is a cemetery…an actual cemetery, in whom lie all our grandmothers and grandfathers, the Father and mother, the wife, the child. Everyone is here all the time. Do you understand?

As he says this, the camera slides back and we see all the characters who have passed into unknown rest sitting and eating and communing with them.

This moment…this scene, I had to watch several times.

Before this film, I believed I was a minority in the world of engaging my imagination with those who have passed on to the other side–-aside of course from those mediums and witches who we are told (wisely) to stay away from. And here, now, my personal experience was being named. Post-film, I’ve discovered that I may not be alone in this. People just don’t talk about it because in our materialistic age one would come across as being a bit of a special bird.

Except with good friends, who love you because you are that special bird.

Last spring, I had good friends visiting from out of town, and while we were cleaning up the kitchen, one friend said, do you ever talk to dead people? I do, he said, I was just talking to *** (shared acquaintance) in my kitchen the other day.

Funny you should say so, say I, I was also speaking to him in my kitchen the other night!

Here again, reaffirmed. This somewhat odd, little-talked-about experience is unmasked.

So here is my confession--I will sometimes have tea in my kitchen with all my aunties around me. They build me up, encourage me and give me advice. On my birthday I enter the kitchen with shouts of happy birthday with all of them standing around my kitchen island. Jesus, my best brother among them holding out a tall mimosa made just for me. If I’m found sitting teary-eyed and "alone" by one of my littles, they will ask what is wrong, and I say, oh, just something wonderful I’m thinking of.

These imaginative moments can be both irritating and endearing depending on your sense of humour-- like when I’m trying to write my course Calling and I have these passed-on scholars on my couch, whose work I am reading and attempting to unpack. Wink is prominently there, sleeves rolled up, more than a little anxious that I’m still working on my course. I tell him to sit back down because he didn’t have to attend to three littles asking for snacks every 7 seconds! And the moments when I’m not using this as an excuse and my fingers are flying on the keyboard, I look over my shoulder at him saying…this is beautiful! Brilliant! And, also what did you mean by this?"

Then in those moments of grief over the world, usually after scrolling through the news– I look over at each of them sitting on my couch (usually 8 or so are prominently there) and commit again to making sure their work does not go to waste. Just recently when I needed encouragement, I saw the newly passed-on biblical scholar Dr. Gordon Fee standing on my coffee table shouting, Jesus is Lord, and Caesar is not!

Speaking of Gordon Fee, while I was reading the Christianity Today article reflecting on his recent passing, the author mentioned one of his previous student's delightful memories of the first day of her New Testament class at Wheaton College. He said to them someday you will come across a headline saying, “Gordon Fee Is Dead.” Do not believe it! he said, standing atop a desk. He is singing with his Lord and his king. Then, instead of handing out the syllabus like a normal professor, he led the class in Charles Wesley’s hymn, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”

He failed to add here that he might also be standing on your table preaching at you if you would only look his way!

So, are our passed-on ones resting in paradise without a thought of us otherwise? In reality, we will never know the answer to this mystery until the day we pass on. Yet in all of Jesus' kingdom of God and heaven language, the Bible does give some indication of the connection between the two realms of the living and the dead.

The connection between All Saints Day and Heaven

The hymn written for this day is titled For all the Saints who labour from their rest. The order of thought in each verse understands the emphasis that New Testament authors place on life after death.

Biblical scholar N.T Wright points this out about the hymn:

After celebrating the life of the saints in the opening verses; our communion with them in the 4th; and their strengthening of us in the 5th-- the 6th verse speaks of our joining with them in their present abode, which is not the final resting place but rather the intermediate place of rest, joy, and refreshment for which one name is paradise. Which leads to the triumphant final verse, arriving at last in the New Jerusalem.

This hymn wins the day as it sits among so many other hymns, prayers and sermons that have tried to soften the blow by presenting death as a friend coming to take us to a better place. They lead us astray into confusion on the biblical view of heaven.

Traditionally, the official line within the Church is that heaven is a place above, to which the saved or blessed go, and a hell below, for the wicked and impenitent.

But, says N.T Wright, the language of heaven in the New Testament doesn’t work that way. Yahweh's kingdom in the preaching of Jesus refers not to our escape from this world into another one, but to [Yahweh's] [domination-free] rule coming “on earth as it is in heaven.

“Heaven,” Wright says, “is a picture of present reality; the heavenly dimension of our present life. Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden dimension of our ordinary life--God’s dimension, if you like.

All Hallow's Eve

Why do we celebrate All Saints Day? It began from a tradition that originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts (October 31st). Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred and the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

Yet, in the eighth century, Pope Gregory III turned this tradition on its head and instead, designated November 1 as a time to honour all saints and martyrs. Soon, All Saints Day eventually incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween.

This act of changing tradition or meanings of stories to align them with Yahweh's plans and purposes, happens frequently in the Old Testament, particularly in our Creation story and the flood story which I teach in my upcoming course Calling.

In this case, the truth in the old Celtic myth that the boundaries of the living and the dead are indeed blurred is recognized. Yet, All Saints Day reminds us that in Yahweh's story, we don't need to fear the unknown realm of the dead. Instead, we honour and remember those who have gone before us.

The great lie of those who play in the dark realm today is that we need to go through them if we want to talk to our loved ones again.

So, with greater insight into the comforting here and not yet aspect of the Kingdom of God and Heaven, and the use of our vivid imaginations into the hidden dimensions of our ordinary life, we get to unmask this lie and reclaim our story. No candles or seances required…just a moment to stop, look around, and say hi.

Thus, in the quiet, perhaps when you are just waking up, walking your dog, or sitting with a hot cuppa, and you decide to chat with a passed-on one--remember that you are not entertaining childish notions of false hope, nor are you practicing the dark arts. Rather, you are engaging faith, hope and love in places that, for now, only your imagination can take you.

For some, it is a wonderful remedy to relieve the burden of loneliness, the crushing pain of loss or a need for closure.

Guidelines

Some guidelines to remember: we are not claiming any truths about this practice or what we hear in these listening moments, such as,” the passed-on one told me this..” ...in fact, one perhaps ought to be keeping these imaginative listening moments to oneself or among good friends. These moments are for you, and perhaps a good friend, but not for anyone else.

Second, these are not real voices we are listening for. If you do hear real voices, perhaps talk to someone about this.

Third, listen for the voice of love. If these imaginative listening moments do not edify or comfort you, then I suggest you abstain from entertaining your imagination in this way effective immediately.

Finally, of course, this practice doesn’t replace imaginative prayer with the Holy Three (see the link to my post on imaginative prayer below).

https://www.lisasoderlund-blog.com/blog/on-no-longer-being-able-to-talk-to-god

Happy All Saints Day, special birds.

References

Wright, N.T, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church

Silliman, Daniel; Christianity Today, Died: Gordon Fee, Who Taught Evangelicals to Read the Bible ‘For All Its Worth: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/october/gordon-fee-obit-bible-reading-worth-fire-pentecostal.html

All Saints Day hymn, written by William Walsham How, For all the Saints who labour from their rest: https://hymnary.org/text/for_all_the_saints_who_from_their_labors

Calling

In my upcoming course, Calling, I take you on a journey through the grand narrative of Scripture from Creation, Fall, and Redemption to Restoration, based on the work of some of the most respected biblical scholars today. We explore just what Jesus meant in his Kingdom of God language and how the church's concept of heaven developed over time. Sign up for my newsletter to receive these posts in your inbox and be the first to hear about the launch of Calling in 2023.

The connection between All Saints Day and Heaven

All Hallow's Eve

Guidelines

References

Suggested Reading

Calling