Earlier today, I was typing out a quotation for the Sunday leaflet from Rowan Williams—aka, the Archbishop of Canterbury; aka, owner of the world’s most awesome eyebrows:

As I was typing, I found myself reflecting on how much I have learned from the archbishop.  He has quite possibly been the greatest influence on my personal spiritual development over the past several years.  Even though I have never met him, I consider him—in some bizarre way—a spiritual teacher and mentor.

What’s more: Rowan Williams is far from the only writer who inspires this sort of feeling in me, and most of the writers on that list are no longer alive.  If you have an hour or three, ask me my opinion of Dorothy L. Sayers—the friend and Oxford colleague of C.S. Lewis who walked with me regularly on my journey to Anglicanism.  (C.S. Lewis himself cannot be ignored either).  Going even further back, there were the countless anonymous Anglo-Saxon monks whose poetry formed the basis of my graduate work and also changed the way I see God working in the natural world.

Something in this relationship that I have with these authors—whom I have never met outside of their writing—hits directly to the meaning of All Saints’ Day (the feast the church celebrates this week).  As a church, we confess belief in the “Communion of Saints.”  The book of Hebrews describes it as a great “Cloud of Witnesses,” encouraging and inspiring us in the life of faith.

We can so easily fall into the trap of thinking that our spiritual journey is about our individual experience of God.  As a society, we also fall into the trap of valuing only what is current and tangible.  The notion of the communion of saints undermines both of these points.  Through faith in Christ, we are connected to all members of the church throughout the world and throughout all generations that have been or will be.   Even though I do not “know” them, I do share a deep and profound connection with Rowan Williams, Dorothy Sayers, and the Anglo-Saxon monks through our shared faith in the person of Jesus Christ.   It comforts me to know that this cloud of witnesses will continue to guide me and instruct me as I move along my spiritual journey.