There is a nakedness to the trees in this season, a transparency to them. Perhaps this is part of the reason the Celts believed that there is a thinness to this season. They felt that at this time of year the veil between the living and the dead was very sheer. May Sarton in part of her poem, Late Autumn, gives voice to this too when she writes,
Disarmed, too vulnerable, full of dread,
And once again as naked as the trees.
Before the dark, precarious days ahead
And troubled skies over tumultuous seas
When we are so transparent to the dead.
There is no wall. We hear their voices speak,
And as the small birds wheel off overhead
We bend toward the earth suddenly weak.
Trees and transparency got me wondering what season was it when Zacchaeus sat in the sycamore tree. I’d like to think it was Autumn. He certainly was transparent to Jesus. Jesus knew his story and invited him to come down from where he was hiding. Jesus then invited himself to dinner and invited Zacchaeus into a new story, a new way of seeing himself and others.
One of the most important aspects of my job back when I was a pastor was sitting with families and listening to their stories. Lots of times, I would just ask questions like, “Who is sitting in your family tree? Are they transparent to you? How have they shaped you? “ Often I would draw their family trees as they told their stories. I think the visual helped families remember people they might have forgotten. Also, it was often just fun to hear the stories.
I remember many Summers ago sitting out in my aunt’s back yard where we had all gathered for a family picnic. My Aunt Loie began to tell stories about various people in our family tree. We drank iced tea and listened as her tales grew as long as the ashes of her untouched cigarette.
It was that afternoon that I learned that I was not the first preacher in the family. She told stories about our great uncle Henry, who had been quite a character. He rode the trains, a hobo of sorts and an alcoholic, not the only one of those either. Most of all he was a street preacher. According to my aunt, Henry had traveled all over the country back when it was easy to catch a freight train to anywhere you might want to go. He spread the Good News using the rails. No one knew where he ended up or even how he had died. He vanished but left some stories for our family tree. Ah yes, there are some rascals up in all our branches. It’s important to know and remember those who have gone before us.
Halloween has its roots in remembering. The tradition of Hallow’s Eve comes from the Celtic people. On this night which was the night before their New Year, they would bring coals from their hearths at home and build a big bon fire in the center of their town. Around the communal fire they would tell stories about the people they loved who had died that year. They would also dress up like the people who had died. At sunrise they would each take a coal from the fire and begin their new year sustained by the memories of the people they loved.
In so many ways the Celtic Festival of Samhain does what the final stanza of Sarton’s poem asks. She writes,
How to believe that all will not be lost
Our flowers too not perish in the blight?
Love, leave me your South against the frost.
Say hush to my fears and warm the night . .
May you know love in the thinness of this season.
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