Remembering The Dead We Didn't Notice When They Were Alive

I told the keeper I thought she had chosen a bad title for this post. But she explained, and so will I. Tonight the cathedral celebrated its annual Mass of   Remembrance for those who died on the streets of Seattle this past year. This year they remembered 75, including a baby named Kimball. The Archbishop presided. This was a good sign that the leader of the church would preside for people who were considered nobodies, who didn't give large endowments or buildings or monuments, but instead whose very lives cut short called the People of God to  accountability and to action.

 At the end the community processed with bagpiper to the courtyard where they stood in the chilly night to hear each name spoken with a tenderness and a reverence which many of the deceased had not received in this life.  As a bell tolled for each name, they who had homes were summoned to not only weep for their dead brothers and sisters, but to be a force for change which says, "Enough, we can and will do much better."