At the cemetery

This morning I walked through the cemetery near my house, intent on appreciating the trees showing off their fall colors before the rains come. I passed by name after name, some I knew, some I committed to their final resting place, some I recognized as the saints who had shaped the church of my childhood. Each time I walk these paths a new name stands out -  the infant son of a classmate, a colleague of my parents, long passed spouses of the widows I know. Every name to someone, as Frederick Buechner would say, “the person who brings life to your life.” Just as my thoughts get lost in those names, the ones I know and the ones I don’t, I am interrupted by the geese flying overhead, “heading home again,” just like Mary Oliver says, calling out, “harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” 

This place in the family of things belongs to both the living and the dead. This is a place of life and death, of urgency and peace. The squirrels go about their frantic work of collecting and storing up food. The deer keep an eye on me, confident that this is their place and I’m merely a guest passing through for now. The lives that brought life to someone else’s life stilled but not silent. And I wonder about my place and how it is both harsh and exciting, just as the geese say. And in this moment I know my place in the family of things to be between the vibrant leaves under my feet and those clinging to the tops of trees. My place as a guest fully belonging to the host.  My place on the path of the living informed by lives lived. 

Today when you hear the geese calling out may you hear them announcing your place in the family of things, and may it be both harsh and exciting.