We are creatures existing on the brink of transformation, for those of us coming from a Christian tradition, we are called to embrace transformation, to turn around. All Souls, dia de los Muertos, and Samhain, all mark that transitional period when the veil between the departed and our present selves is at its thinnest. That thin time of reaching across and remembrance extends from October 31 through November 2, and it is during this time that we are reminded that we too will be utterly transformed and released from our corporeal existence.
The transformation of death is inevitable, it takes us all. So too ways of life die, and empires fall. We all stand in a very thin place in this moment.
But not all transformations are inevitable. We are active participants in how we choose to respond to the times in which we are given to live, how we allow ourselves to be shaped, and how we shape others. As a practical theologian I cannot help but consider the spiritual nature of our current political/cultural/religious zeitgeist, and if I were to define that zeitgeist with one word, that word would be apocalypse.
I do not mean to say we are for certain facing the physical and existential collapse that will lead to the end of all that we know, but it could. In my brief 500 words, I will not even attempt to consider the apocalyptic changes facing us through climate change, for today I speak only of the apocalypse of politic. I stand before the ancestors’ altar in my home, and the voices .