Gratitude for Our Ancestors

Sermon: November 2, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

Today is All Souls Day, the day the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest, when we let ourselves entertain the thought that maybe communication across the veil is possible, that maybe we can reconnect with those we have lost. 

Many cultures and religions have a special time of year when they connect with their dead. Christianity has All Souls Day, All Saints Day, Dia de Los Muertos, The Day of the Dead. Judaism has the practice of Kever Avot, the Grave of the Fathers. Islam has Shab-e-Barat, the Night of Atonement. Hinduism has Pitru Paksha, the Fortnight of the Ancestors. Many African religions don’t set aside one time of year to connect to their dead, but habitually engage in rituals and traditions that keep their beloved deceased present in their lives. 

It is a natural human inclination to keep ties to those we have lost. When we lose someone we also lose a piece of our own identity, since our identities are partially created by how others reflect us. Comparing ourselves to those around us is how we determine what attributes we share with others and which we don’t. Am I patient like my mother? Do I have the same sense of humor as my father? Am I as courageous as my best friend? Am I as kind as my teacher? Whether we compare ourselves consciously or unconsciously, we are consistently learning more about ourselves and forming our sense of identity by looking at those around us. When we lose someone, we also lose the ability to see our own reflection in them. We are left only with the memories and stories of how they affected us and shaped us into the person we are now, how they helped us know ourselves better.

The matriarch of my family, my grandmother, passed away a few years ago and when I think of her, the feeling is one of nostalgia mixed with the sweet sense of kinship that was special between she and I. I believe I have her strong will, fortitude, appreciation for good craftsmanship, her lyric singing voice, and as she always told me in hushed, secretive tones, “We have the good nose.” There are pieces of me that I can trace directly back to her and while she was here those pieces of me weren’t alone, they had a partner, a twin, someone else who shared them and understood them. According to many African societies, my grandmother is now part of the “sasha,” the recently departed whose time on earth overlaps with people still here who knew her directly. She is part of the living-dead, a group of souls that aren’t yet wholly dead because they live in the memories of people who can call them to mind, tell stories about them, and even create their likeness in art. Once the last person who knew my grandmother passes away, she will leave the sasha for the zamani, the realm of the fully dead. For now, she continues to live in the memories of others, in my memory, and for this reason will continue to affect me as well as anyone I tell her story to. 

This is the kind of ancestral remembrance that many of us do naturally and easily. As long as the memories are positive and not painful, we often encourage them as they help us feel connected to our roots and aware of our own identities, grounded in a world we can understand and one that feels comfortable to us. There are naturally aspects of our ancestors that we willingly embrace and want to carry forward to our own children, friends, or loved ones. There are traditions we love to pass down, attributes that we admire in ourselves that we hope will be prominent character traits passed down to our children. There are stories of overcoming hardships and persistent strength that continue to inspire us year after year. Stories of hope, laughter, and care continue to resonate with ease. These are the ancestral stories we hand down from generation to generation with pride and gratitude. 

What about the hard stories? What about the stories that fill us with grief or shame? How many painful stories do we want to carry with us? How many do we want to hand down to the next generation? When is pain necessary for understanding and when does it prolong suffering? Different cultures have different answers to these questions. 

Some sacred texts address this directly. The Talmud (a sacred text of Rabbinic Judaism) states in Avot 3:1: “Know from whence you came, and where you are going, and to Whom you will have to give account in the future.”

The Akan Tribe of Ghana practices the act of Sankofa, which is based on an African proverb meaning, “It is not taboo to go back for what you left behind,” which means, learn from the past as you move into the future. Look behind you before you move forward.

I believe our American culture is not accustomed to looking back to the stories of our ancestors that make us uncomfortable. We have perfected avoidance and deflection, and the road of decolonization ahead is long and steep. While this work is necessary and has the potential to transform us as individuals and as a society, it already feels too heavy for many. While ancestral work is second nature to other cultures, it’s like pulling teeth to get Americans to recognize the wisdom and guidance that has been bequeathed by our ancestors and their mistakes. However, the tide is changing.

We are starting to see our Anglo-centric culture begin to look back without our rose-colored glasses. We see it in the way history is beginning to be told from different perspectives, in the institution of trauma-informed practices, in the decentralization of the cisgendered white male perspective. Connecting to the cultural ancestors who might have been silenced by time is becoming the central work of historians, sociologists, and even theologians within the most rigid religions. 

Benedictine oblate Christine Valters Paintner, in US Catholic Magazine says, “Our ancestors are allies for our creative unfolding and can offer guidance and wisdom… We often have healing work to do with some of our ancestors: As we know through the field of epigenetics, traumas are carried down through the generations… The more we work to heal the wounds we carry and those carried by our ancestors, the freer we become to live into the fullness we were created to be.”

All Souls Day is the perfect reminder to us to do this important work, to look behind us for morsels of truth, for cultural gifts and lessons that our ancestors have given us. We have inherited these gifts, whether we wanted them or not, and now we must decide what we want to take with us into the future, what we want to hand to future generations, for we are their ancestors, and what we do now, the stories and lessons we create now, matters. 

What does ancestral work look like in practice? 

First, listen. The stories of your ancestors are there for you to find, whether in your memories, in the words of others, or through your own cultural research. How do their stories compare with yours? Can you find any similarities? What hardships did your ancestors overcome? What were their traditions? What attributes did they show that you feel are part of your identity?

Second, embrace your mortality. Nothing makes us cherish our lives more than realizing that our time is limited. Now is the time to decide what you want to carry forward from the past and what you want to release. Your wisdom will help future generations. Your work of healing and transforming the energy of the past will echo into the future in positive ways you can’t imagine. There is no time like the present.  

Third, lead with love. Know that how you interact with the stories of your ancestors will influence what kind of ancestor you will become. Model a growth mindset and remain open to learning history in its full context, without worrying that what you learn may cause you to pass judgement on your own identity. While you may have inherited traits from your ancestors, they were different people living in a different time under different circumstances. They gifted you their stories and lessons so that you can move forward and grow further than they were able to. In the great human relay race, they have handed you the baton. Now it’s your turn to carry it until the time comes when you will pass it on. Carrying it with integrity and compassion will ensure that future generations look back to you with a sense of gratitude, thankful for the lessons you have learned and the stories you left them.

Democratic senator Paul Tsongas stated, “We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.”

This is sacred work. We reference the interconnectedness of all beings, but we often only think about the beings currently living today. It’s like reaching out to all sides, but forgetting to look below and above us. Not only are we energetically connected to others now, but we are energetic echoes of those who came before us. And our energy will continue to resonate through future generations. As that energy passes through us, we have a sacred duty to nurture it, heal it, soften it, hone it, and clarify it to the best of our ability before it leaves us. How will you help channel that energy? 

It feels like a big responsibility, and it is. It’s also a gift. Many people walk through life without being cognizant of the lessons they’ve been handed. However, if you recognize that you are a steward of the universe, you know the richness of experience that lies in your DNA, your ancestral stories, traditions, and culture. You can be grateful for the many lives that have come and gone in order for you to be alive, for you to be the most evolved being thus far in your lineage. You have been gifted more lessons than any of your previous 27 million ancestors. (Yes, that’s correct. Each human alive today has approximately 27 million ancestors mapping back 100,000 years.) And you are the manifestation, the culmination of all those experiences and stories. That’s a miraculous thought and one that should instill immense gratitude.

Now, what will you do with all those lessons? What will you add to the story? How will you transform the energy that’s been entrusted to you? What actions will you take, what will you be remembered for, and how will you love in a way that causes those who come after you to look back and say thank you? Thank you for this beautiful, confusing, messy, and sacred life. Amen.

OTHER READINGS FOR REFLECTION:

Sherri Mitchell Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset, Native American Lawyer, Teacher, and Author

“When we connect with our ancestors and put their wisdom into action, we are evolving our collective consciousness. We are transporting the ancient truths of our collective past and birthing them into our future. What we create out of those truths extends the wisdom of all those who have gone before us, and it provides a guide for all those who will follow.”

Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

“And so our mothers and grandmothers have… handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see: or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.”

Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence

“it was the kind of moon

that I would want to

send back to my ancestors

and gift to my descendants

so they know that I too,

have been bruised...by beauty."

Taigen Dan Leighton, Zen Priest

"Having a wide, inclusive view of time deepens our appreciation of this present time… We must see how, right in the middle of our ordinary time of walking down the path, the ancestors of past and future walk together with us. Reenvisioning time, we can reinhabit time. Reinhabiting time we enrich our lives by reclaiming our intimate relationship and connection to beings of the past and beings of the future."