Yesterday in USA Today, the front page statistical snapshot was of our experience of the supernatural.  Over 4,000 adults were surveyed in August of last year and 29% affirmed some connection with the dead.  Lesser numbers believe they’ve seen a ghost and consulted with a medium.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that reason why Halloween and scary stories/movies/etc. resonate with us so consistently is that there is something to all this.  I need to qualify that.  Do I believe that there are spirits of the dead who are trapped between this world and the next?  No.  Do I believe in hauntings?  No.  I do believe, however, in possessions.  I do believe there is a spiritual realm.  I do believe in angels – both holy and unholy.  And I do believe that those faithful for whom love are still connected with us in a real albeit non-ghostly way.

Consider the following:

The Communion of Saints – “…I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints…”  The book of Hebrews says that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (12.1).  We are bound to the faithful departed in Christ and the sacraments (read the catechism, BCP page 862).  Remember what is said in the Eucharistic prayer – therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we…worship God.  It was best put to me when I was seminary as this: imagine an elevator shaft or celestial cylinder.  At the top is the church triumphant (the saints in the heaven) and at the bottom is the church militant (the folks on earth).  When we come together for the Eucharist, the gap between the top and bottom vanishes.  We are joined together in the timeless, space-less, reality that is the Kingdom of God.  If we are bound in this way, then yes, there is a connection with the saints.  Yes, there may very well be a good reason you feel Grandma’s prayers.

Angels – “…let your holy angels dwell with us…”  My favorite prayer from Compline is “Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy; let your holy angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace; and let your blessing be upon us always, through Christ our Lord.  Amen” (BCP, 133).  Of all the things that could be inferred in this prayer is the recognition that God’s holy angels are with us to protect us from the unholy.  This theology gives body to those ‘feelings’ we sometimes have that something is dark.  The biblical witness is consistent with this, especially the Gospels.  And our prayers too understand that there is more than we can see.  After all the Nicene Creed confesses that God created all things – seen and unseen.

No In-between – The idea that people ‘hang around’ in a spirit form until there is closure from some event finds no support in scripture or Tradition.  Jesus told the thief on the cross that today you will be with me in Paradise.  The Book of Daniel (the only place in the Old Testament that speaks of resurrection) talks about the Archangel Michael comes and the dead awake to everlasting life or death (Daniel 12.1ff) and so on.  While it might be comforting to think those who proceed us are still around, it’s not the instinct that is incorrect, just the mode.  Those who have died in faith are with us – but in a community that is beyond our comprehension.  And while our minds may not get it – our hearts tend to.