Recently in Practices Category

A few days ago, I had a Dream. I'm not talking about a dream - you know, those nightly forays into garbage-collection your brain indulges in when not dealing with the normal routine of daily life. I'm talking about a Dream. A Dream is when you get messages, whether divinely inspired, precognitive, or whatever, that convey some important meaning. For instance, the Dream that warns you against getting on a train, just before the train you were scheduled to get on plows into a truck full of explosives, or the Dream that gives you a message from your grandmother, who had just died an hour earlier, on another continent, while you were sleeping, so you had yet to receive any notification of it (or, for that matter, any notification that your grandmother was in anything other than perfect health).

In my Dream, I was walking through a field with a friend - who it was, I didn't know even in the dream - when I was shot. The arrow hit me in the shoulder, but that was only because Ra had flown down and spoiled the aim of the shooter, a woman who had been aiming for my heart.

While the arrow was removed from my shoulder, Ra looked me in the eyes (and let me tell you, having a bird of prey look you dead in the eyes is damned disconcerting) and asked me, "What are you?"

I answered, "I'm a shoe salesman."

Ra kept looking at me and shot back, "So why aren't you doing it?"

When I woke up, the dream kept eating at me. Why aren't I doing it? Why aren't I doing what? Being a shoe salesman? What is that supposed to mean, anyway? No one ever accused me of being quick on the uptake - at least, not that I know of - but it felt like I should know what Ra was talking about. Then it finally hit me. As a priest, I'm in the job of selling shoes. Spiritual shoes, yes, but still, the point is that I'm supposed to be outfitting people to get on with their lives, to armor them against the hardships they face out in the real world, so they can get out there and do the things they need to do. And I just haven't been doing that very well.

Whatever the excuse - I've been sick, I've been too tired to get out, I don't have the inspiration to write, whatever - the fact is, I've been falling down on the job. When it gets so obvious that I get reminded of that fact in a Dream, it's obviously time for me to wake up and take stock of what I'm doing with my vocation.

In many ways, it's easier to do this job when part of an active community, because a lot of your life is ruled by the need to serve that community. Be up in time to do sunrise service for those who have loved ones to commemorate, work through the day on caring for those in the community, do sunset service with the active members of the faith, spend the evening preparing for the next day, rinse, repeat.

When your day is ruled by the service you do, it's easier to stay focused, and perform the duties your god expects of you. When you're alone, serving your god as an individual, it becomes so much easier to think to yourself "I'll just sleep in this morning, He won't mind if I do my morning prayers later" or, "I can't interrupt my friend just for sunset prayers. I can do them later" or even, "I feel like crap today. He won't want to hear my prayers when I'm feeling so cranky and out of sorts."

When you're a shoe salesman, you don't get to choose whether to sell shoes, or who to sell them to. Whether it's the nice old lady with twenty cats, or the punk with enough metal in his face to make a metal detector melt down, my job is to provide them with the best possible shoes for their needs. Sometimes I'll have just the right shoes, sometimes I'll have to refer them to someone else. But if I'm doing my job the way I'm supposed to, every one of them is going to go away with the shoes they need. Will I always be successful? I seriously doubt that. But if I'm working to the best of my ability, and focusing on the service I'm supposed to be providing, then I'll be able to look at my Lord at the end of the day and be honestly proud of the service I've given.

As one year ends, and we prepare for the next to begin, it is time to look back and see who has passed on during the last year. Fortunately, we can find a list of notable people who died during 2009, here. As you can see, not everyone's story has been told. It would be good, for the dead and for those who remain, to tell the stories of those who have passed on. If you knew one of those on that list, tell their story. If you have someone who was important to you, who passed on during the past year, tell their story at our Virtual Cenotaph. Everyone deserves to have their story told, and by telling those stories, you are honoring them and their memory. Doing this will help open the way to the new year, so that you can enter it with mind and heart clear.

Due to the weather, I was forced to postpone my cemetery visit from yesterday to today. It was worth the wait.

The nearest accessible cemetery is in Brattleboro, Vermont, on top of a hill overlooking the Connecticut River. The cemetery has been there since at least 1830 (and most likely earlier - that was just the earliest date I could clearly read off a marker), with graves that cover an area of at least ten acres on top of the hill, and running down the slope facing the river for at least three tiers.

Some of the history represented there, just in the names I was able to decipher, shows how much we miss when we don't pay attention to our dead. For instance, I had never known about the Steamboat Greenfield explosion of May 18, 1840, until I saw the marker for Mr. Wood, the boat's engineer. I found entire families laid to rest together, some sharing a single marker for all of them, some with individual markers, some with a combination: a family monument, with a smaller stone giving name and date that showed where each member was within the family plot. I also found many people buried alone, without any relatives or loved ones nearby.

Saddest of all, though, were the stones that had uprooted, broken off, or simply fallen off their bases, and were simply laying there, some of them long enough that grass had partially grown over them. The city doesn't care enough about the graves to reset the stones - all that matters is ensuring that the lawn mower can travel between them. In fact, the person I encountered who had driven an hour to view the stones cared more about them than the city seems to care, and he was viewing them as a tourist, not as one of the Silent Shroud would. Regardless, the state of the cemetery made it clear that Kelemvor's teachings are needed, as the whole place gave off an aura of being cared for in the most superficial way possible.

That pretty much covers my initial impressions, so the rest of this post will hopefully be more uplifting.

Once I had finished walking the cemetery and noting the names and dates I could decipher, and once I had traced the family connections I was able to find in those that were there, I trusted Kelemvor to guide me to the spot that would allow me to bless as much of the cemetery in one go as I could. That, He did. The spot was an intersection of three drives, and right in the middle of the intersection, in a little raised triangle of ground where the three drives came together, was a piece of granite that had been placed on its side, like a small altar. It was obvious that this was where He wanted me to pray.

While I was praying, the sadness I felt, coming from all those abandoned and unremembered graves, wasn't overwhelming - it was, rather, tempered by a sense of resignation, as if it was expected that the living would forget the dead. At the same time, there was a sense of peace that came over the cemetery, as if a simple blessing was enough to ease the passing of those who hadn't gone yet.

How many were still there? I don't know. What I do know is that, for the Church of Kelemvor's first Feast of the Moon, the result was a greater connection with local history, and a greater sense of peace in one cemetery, at least. It's a start. I continue to pray that it grows until we can accomplish the goal of the church: that no one dies alone.

Every culture has its festival that celebrates the dead, honored ancestors, and the spirits that dwell in the afterlife. In Japan, there is the Bon Festival. In Korea, there is Chuseok. In China, there is the Qingming Festival. In Nepal, there is Gaijatra. To Pagans, Samhain is that holiday. The Asatruar honor the dead in two holidays: Walpurgis Night and the Feast of the Einherjar. In Western society, All Saints Day and All Souls Day occur together, and are surrounded and expanded upon by Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. Even players of World of Warcraft celebrate Hallow's End.

In our faith, the Feast of the Moon celebrates our honored dead, our ancestors, and all those who have passed on. We celebrate this festival from October 31 through November 2. Traditionally, according to the Calendar of Harptos, the Feast of the Moon would be celebrated on November 30, and would be celebrated by all faiths. In the future, if the other Gods of Faerûn gain a following in this world, our celebration may return to the traditional date, but for now, we choose to celebrate at a time when, due to the combined celebrations of millions of others, this world is closest to the other side, and the dead can most easily be honored.

As a new religion, we have not accumulated the generations of tradition that guide older religions in the celebration of this (and other) holidays, but we do have guidelines for celebration that give us a good place to start.

• In our faith, the most important part of this celebration is the relating of the stories of our dead. Each family tells the stories of their loved ones who have passed on, as well as stories of any notable ancestors. Our priests relate the stories of any members of their congregations who have died in the last year, who do not have family members to tell their stories for them.
• Another practice is visiting the graves of the dead, to ritually remember them with offerings, stories, conversation, and picnics. A visit to the grave during this festival is a solemn obligation.
• This is the holiday at which conversations with the dead occur. Priests will speak with those on the other side who can offer insight into difficulties that their congregation may be facing, and will help any members of the congregation who do not know how to communicate with the dead.

We don't have any objections to the usual practices of Halloween. In fact, I personally enjoy giving out treats when the Trick-or-Treat mobs come to my door, and I love decorating my house in its Halloween best. And as for horror movies? Don't let me get started on those! Celebrating along with the rest of the world is a good way to get in the spirit of the holiday. Share the good times with your family and friends, and give to those around you, whether it's by giving out candy at your door, giving something extra to your favorite charity, or going to the cemetery to place flowers on the graves of Revolutionary War veterans.

Whatever you do to prepare for the holiday, remember that the dead deserve your honor, and that the honor you give them reflects upon your own. The Feast of the Moon is a time to reflect and reconnect with your past, with those who made the world what it is now. It's a time for families to come together, the living and the dead, and rediscover their unity. Immerse yourself in the spirit of the festival, and you will find that it stays with you into the coming year.