01/11/2014

Good morning. “When all the saints go marching in” – that’s what the jazz band were playing as they marched through the French quarter in New Orleans. I’d seen this happen in films but now, here I was, as if on location, and experiencing it in real life. The band was marching at the head of a funeral procession and, as it swayed its way to the cemetery, it provided an unforgettable spectacle for everyone who saw and heard it. Today is All Saints’ Day, the day when believers give thanks for all the saints they’ve known. No, I don’t just mean those who, after a long and complicated process, have been beatified and then canonised. That kind of saint tends to be larger than life and impossibly good, a little frightening if I’m honest. The apostle Paul, in his letters, has a more democratic understanding of saints –they are the ordinary people who take their faith seriously enough to put themselves out for it. That’s good enough for me. When I think of saints in this down-to-earth sense, I think of Millicent Taylor who taught me in Sunday School, or Cliff Edwards who nursed his dad right through to the end, or Rose Jenkins who helped people pay their bills though almost no one knew about it, or Peter Baugh who made me laugh and was such a friend. Nothing spectacular but salt of the earth. In my dreams, these are the people I’ll find in heaven. And when people like this are on the move, all I know is this, I want to be in their number, when the saints go marching in 

Dear Lord, thank you for the saints we’ve known, who set us an example, who believed in us, who showed us the way to live our lives. Amen.