ALL Saints

This time of year, as the days turn cold and the light gets shorter, many of us who suffer from depression start to take precautions against Seasonal Affective Disorder, such as increasing our Vitamin D intake. Recently I adjusted the dose on my antidepressant medication and got great results. But it got me thinking about how not everyone has the same experience.

Some of us who take antidepressants love them and have gotten a lot of benefit from them. Others feel scared to take them, or have tried many types and never found relief. Some have been forced to take them and now consider themselves to be Psychiatric Survivors. And some people have never been depressed a day in their life!

In a church community, even in those cases where people share the same labels, our experiences may be quite different. We have to take the time to get to know each other and not rely on labels. This is true for sexuality and gender as well - some queer people are out, some are in, some don’t even know they’re queer yet! So when we say All are Welcome, we have to really mean ALL. I was the same amount of sinner and saint, back when I was feeling depressive symptoms in the pew, as I am now that I’m feeling better. There is nothing about us that could ever make God love us any more, and there is nothing we could do that would ever make God love us any less.

So when we say “all saints” during All Saints Sunday, we really do mean it. All means ALL.

with love, Pr. Chelsea