Editor’s Note: This ritual was thoughtfully designed to honor the spirit of the season without appropriating the symbols and imagery of Día de los Muertos. If your worship leader(s) is/are white, please honor both the author’s intentions and our faith’s commitment to avoid harm.
Liturgy
Setup
Set up an altar in a central location that contains:
- a bowl of water
- a bowl of salt
- photos of people in the congregation who have passed away in the last year
- space for people to add other photos
- paper autumn-colored leaves
- black pens or markers
Script
Early in the service: Offer a time for people to bring photos of departed loved ones to the altar, and to write names on leaves if they didn’t bring a photo.
Sermon/Reflection leading up to ritual: You might want to have a mini-sermon leading up to this ritual where you name the people in the congregation who have passed away and tell a little bit of their story and/or name important figures in the wider world who have passed away and tell a little bit of their story.
Facilitator: Today we have named a few people who we mourn together as a local church community, and as a broader world community. But there are many more people that we have lost individually and personally.
So many of us have lost parents, grandparents, siblings, close friends, family: all part of a wide interconnected web of loss. We may not be able to offer a eulogy for each person today, but we can say their names. And in speaking their names, we remember them: how they have impacted our lives, and share our love for them with each other.
In a few moments, you will be invited to return to this table of memory, to say the name of the friends and family you have lost out loud, and put a pinch of salt into the bowl of water for them. If you’re not ready to say a name out loud yet, and just wish to remember them silently with this ritual of salt and water, that is ok too.
[Pick up some salt.]
Salt and water are reminiscent of the tears that we cry in our loss, our love, our grief. They are a release of pressure: We often feel better after we’ve shed a tear. We hope that through today’s tears we can experience the healing that we need through this symbolic act.
[Release salt into the bowl of water.]
Once the salt dissolves in the water, we can’t see it anymore. It’s still with us in some ways, and gone in others. Just like we carry our loved ones in our hearts even as we don’t see them physically present in our lives any more.
When you are ready, come to this table, this community, of remembrance and love.
[Pause a beat.]
[Facilitator goes first to set the example, dropping salt and naming names.]
[Soft music plays as people go up to drop their salt in the bowl.]