NeuroDivine

The Cloak and the Cloud: All Saints’ Day with Wisdom and Weight

Today, the calendar sings of saints—not the gilded ones, but the ones who walked with a limp, who kept vigil in silence, who bore the weight of the world in their kidneys and still showed up.

The readings are not gentle, but they are true.

Psalm 15 asks who may dwell in the tent. Psalm 84 answers with longing. Psalm 149 dances with the faithful. But it is Wisdom who steals the breath. She is not sentimental. She is light without glare, mirror without distortion, presence without panic. She enters holy souls—not perfect ones, not efficient ones, but those who have made room. She does not rush.

Isaiah dreams of a world where we do not weep in vain. Where the work of our hands is not undone by fatigue or forgetting. Where the dialysis machine hums in rhythm with the psalmist’s harp. Where the cloak is never left behind.

Luke’s Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?” And the answer is not a diagnosis, not a label, not a liturgical role. It is a knowing that comes from the cloud—the one that covered the mountain, the one that covers the eyes when the blood pressure drops, the one that holds the saints who cannot speak but still shine.

And then there is the Rule. Chapter 25 is not easy reading. It speaks of exclusion, of silence, of sorrow. But for those of us who have sat alone at the table—not by punishment but by necessity—it reads differently. The brother who eats alone is not forgotten. He is not blessed by passersby, but he is seen by Wisdom. She orders all things well. Even the awkward meal. Even the missed Eucharist. Even the dialysis chair.

All Saints’ is not about achievement. It is about presence. It is about those who said yes before the map was drawn. It is about the ones who wear their cloaks faithfully, even when the weather turns. It is about the ones who do not leave the church, even when the church cannot hold them.

Today, we honour the saints who do not fit the mould. The ones who pray in fragments. The ones who write in margins. The ones who know that Wisdom is not a concept but a companion.

She reaches mightily. And she does not forget.