Dear Friends in Christ,

Last Sunday, as part of our prayers, we read aloud the names of people who had died. Over the years it has become traditional to offer a general commemoration of the dead, not just those venerated by the Church, on the Feast of All Saints. Many of these names came from you – family members, friends, loved ones; people you have loved and lost. But there were other names on that list, names of people none of us knew, and most of us had never heard.

Last year I added to the list the names of unarmed Black individuals killed by police (or civilians acting as vigilantes) in the last decade. This year I included the names of those who died since All Saints Day 2020. It was still a distressingly long list. This year I added the names of trans people killed for their identity since 2000 – again another distressingly long list. Next year, I will include the names from both these lists who died since All Saints 2021, and I plan to add the names of native women who have been murdered.

You might wonder why I am doing this. While these names were not known to us except in a few cases, they are part of the human family, beloved children of God, all of them made in God’s image. Even though we did not know them, God had counted every hair on their head. Even though we did not know them, and they are forgotten except by a few, God has not forgotten them. They are people whose deaths were largely ignored, because they do not matter to the world, though they matter to God. You may recall the recent disappearance of Gabby Pettito whose body was later discovered in Wyoming. It made national headlines and was all some people could talk about for a while, and there was a nationwide search. Yet in the last decade over 700 native women have disappeared in Wyoming, whose names and stories have never made the headlines, and who are all but forgotten except to those who loved them… and God.

We read out loud the names of those we want to remember. Remember means to call to mind, from the Old French remembrer, which in turn comes from late Latin rememorari ‘call to mind’, from re- (expressing intensive force) + Latin memor ‘mindful’. But it also has its roots in the opposite of dismember – to pull apart. To re-member means to bring pieces and parts back together. To re-member means to make the body whole again. We are all part of the body of Christ, and none of us can be whole until all are whole. And so we read their names, to remember them and to re-member them, to witness to their belovedness and their belonging, until the day when no child of God is lost to the violence and injustice of our world.

Jane+