Follow-up to WATERmeditation with Brad S. Lutz
“Honoring Our Guiding Lights”
Monday, November 3, 2025, 7:30 PM ET
Brad Lutz led the November 2025 WATERmeditation with a moving presentation on honoring those who light our way. The video can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYHxxvt0_U4 .
Mary E. Hunt led the October 13, 2025 WATERmeditation “Shaping a Full Life” using Mary Oliver’s “When Death Comes” from her New and Selected Poems, Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. The video can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPzHaLOtogc.
WATER’s customary land acknowledgment set the context.
Mary E. Hunt’s Introduction to Brad Lutz:
Brad Lutz is a retired United Church of Christ minister. He worked in local churches, was a hospice chaplain, and engaged in AIDS ministry. He continues his ministry through spiritual direction and faith formation events.
I learned recently, to my delight, that he was one of several ministers who accompanied the great Catholic queer theologian John J. McNeill during John’s last days. This is the centenary of John’s birth. I was comforted by the thought of John being attended to by Brad and others who recognized who John was since John’s own Jesuit community put him out some years before he died.
Brad is an oblate of Holy Wisdom Monastery, an interfaith group near Madison, WI. He takes inspiration from the Taizé community in France and from the Iona Community in Scotland. Brad is no amateur at prayer. He lives in Florida with his husband, Michael.
Brad writes that “Christianity’s All Saints’/Souls’ Days, Buddhism’s Ghost Festival, Sufi Islam’s Urs and Judaism’s Yahrzeit are just a few of the celebrations of ancestors and saints across the globe that honor and keep alive the bond with those who have gone before us. Whether you connect with ancestors, saints, mentors, loved ones or inner spiritual guides, this meditation will invite you to honor the guiding lights of those who have come before you, walked beside you, or lit your path in ways seen and unseen: We are because they were. We become because they live in us.”
Brad’s remarks follow
When I was 10 years old, my grandfather died. He had been a formidable presence in my young life. Saturday fishing outings; Wednesday walks to the newsstand to buy his cigars and a comic book for me; evenings on the porch teaching me the 23rd Psalm; visits to his ‘down country’ friends where I picked up a word or two in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect they spoke; Sunday evenings at church where he “rested” his eyes while listening to the sermon – in all of these moments I experienced a kindness and love that lit my path.
At the visitation before his funeral, trying to understand the first major loss of my young life, my grandmother took me to his casket and said, “you know he loved you and he loves you now in heaven and watches over you every day.” In those words, she taught me two important lessons: 1) death does not end love; and, 2) no one journeys toward wholeness alone. Later in life, I would associate those lessons with the Christian concept of the Communion of Saints.
For me, the Communion of Saints is the great circle of all who live in God’s love — not only those canonized or remembered in Christian tradition, but all who have opened their lives to compassion, truth, and justice. This communion stretches beyond any visible institution to embrace all people — and perhaps even all creation — that reflect the divine light.
Archbishop William Temple (1881-1944) tells of a child who, when asked what a saint was, looked at the stained-glass windows of saints and replied: “A saint is someone the light shines through.” Regardless of religious affiliation or belief, we’ve all experienced relationships that have allowed Divine love and grace to shine through to us in their own unique colors. This web of sacred relationship invites us to trust that Spirit is not confined by religion or time, and that every act of love joins us to a vast, living solidarity that is more durable than death, wider than doctrine, and deeper than we can imagine.
Although I am now older than my grandfather was at his death in 1960, I continue to experience his gentle and kind love (even as I time this meditation with his railroad engineer’s pocket watch). Today, my celestial catalog of guiding lights, deceased and living, has expanded greatly: Milt, the pastor; Robert, the college chaplain; Bela, the professor; Dorothy, the librarian; Roger, the attorney; Mary David, the nun; Holly, the spiritual director; and many more. Each character who has touched my life with love is now, along with me, part of the great stream of grace that flows through every age and culture. To show love, respect, and gratitude for departed forebears is crucial because all of them watch over me every day. Remembering and honoring my guiding lights keeps alive the bonds of love. Whether you connect with ancestors, saints, mentors, loved ones or inner spiritual guides, the celebrations of ancestors and saints across the globe invite us to honor those who have come before us, walked beside us, or lit our path in ways seen and unseen.
As we enter this time of meditation, I invite you to remember and reverence those guiding lights who watch over you and speak to your needs today. We are because they were. We become because they live in us.
Brad shared a picture of himself with his grandparents and his sister, circa 1955 when he was six.
He also offered a lovely image for the period of contemplation.
Conversation ensured. Here is a sample of the topics touched:
- One participant told how she was essentially raised by her two sets of grandparents and felt their love all of her life. One grandmother in particular encouraged her faith which has also been a lifelong part of our colleague’s make-up.
- Another person spoke of her many dearly departed friends, including two who “ride with” her as she goes about her day. She mentioned the famous quote from St. John Chrysostom: “Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were before. They are now wherever we are.” Love endures.
- A welcome newcomer to the group spoke of “my peeps” as those who surround her and remind her to be patient with herself.
- A person spoke of her long list of those who came before and shed light, and also some people currently living with dementia who are in another category but no less saints.
- An elder among us spoke of being blessed not only by ancestors but also by those who are younger than she, especially her sons, whose love is so important. That insight, to look forward as well as backward, is key.
- Brad thanked everyone, describing the great stream of love that he enjoys.
In all, it was a time of deep and grateful reflection, almost too deep for words, as we entered into that stream that is broad and deep.
WATER thanks Brad Lutz and all of the participants. We will reconvene on Monday, December 8, 2025 at 7:30 PM ET with Cheryl Nichols reflecting on “When Darkness Comes.” All are welcome.
