My father died this August. All Souls, this year, is hitting me hard. ‘All that stuff about saints’, I remember hearing, growing up, ‘that’s just idolatry… worshipping false gods.’ Actually, I think the opposite is true. When we imagine that in this creation we’re somehow alone, that it’s all about ‘my God and me’, we make ourselves into idols. When we forget that ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust’ applies to all of us we’re pretending to BE gods. When we act – what pride it takes! – as if we’ll live forever, we’re ignoring all those who have gone before. The truth is, we’ll always be in relationship with a world, animate and inanimate, that has experienced forgiveness and mercy and love before us, with us, and long after us. That’s the church. The one without walls, in either time or space. The boat, on the river of time.