Last Sunday, we celebrated one of the great feasts of the Church year, a day of great joy for so many of us: All Saints' Sunday. In our leaflets, we recorded before God the names of those souls who have died in the past year, these ones we have loved but see no longer. We as individuals have, of course, been carrying them in our hearts since the day they passed from this life into the life to come. But there is something particularly powerful and deeply solacing about remembering them before God together in church. It is as if our individual love for them is magnified and deepened by our community with fellow Christians, as together we give thanks for our beloved dead, and lift them up into the perpetual light of God's love.

Requiem eternam, dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them. On Sunday night at the 6 p.m. Eucharist, in the ineffably beautiful music of Fauré's Requiem, we commended each of these souls to God and gave thanks for their lives. As we prayed, we remembered what it is all too easy to forget: that God was with them at every moment of their lives, breathing the divine light and life into them moment by moment, day by day, year in and year out. God's love and presence was there for them in the good times, when they could see and feel God's light. But just as surely, the divine light and love was alive in them also in the down times, when all seemed like dust and ashes and death, times when they may have wondered: "So where is God now in the midst of this mess?" Maybe you yourself cried out something just like that last Sunday when you heard of the horror that unfolded in the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Maybe in anguish or anger you asked, "Where, O God, was your light and love when that tormented and hatred-possessed man took the lives of so many - children included - while they were worshipping you?"

My prayer, of course, is that no such violence will ever interrupt our life here at Trinity. But in the unlikely event of an emergency, whether a violent intruder, fire or earthquake, every first responder would tell you that the right thing to do is: head for the nearest exit as quickly as you can. Do not wait to be instructed by clergy or ushers. Go, and go quickly and quietly. To do this, of course, you should be keenly aware of all the exit locations: For the church and downstairs, exits are at the four corners of the building, front and back. Parish house exits are by the reception desk, and directly down the hall from it. Our staff and ushers have been trained in basic security measures, and your own awareness about how to be prepared for and act in an emergency can save a life, including your own.