Halloween

So shoot me, I like Halloween. In college my "power encounter" professor (its like an evangelical Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher) told me it was unhealthy to like such a demonized day and fellow classmates told me I was "playing with fire" to recognize the 31st at all. Really?

Yesterday afternoon Lucy and I took a walk down town to buy a pie pumpkin. It was dreary outside, just a little cold. Birds picked morsels out of people's dead gardens, leaves sat heaped up in piles by the curb, the air felt colder than it had before. The earth dies, in part, during the Fall. We can talk about the happy circle of life all we want: there is something a little spooky about walking around on a gloomy afternoon in autumn seeing this kind of decay.

Halloween is the eve of All Saints Day. In the church it is a time to remember the saints and those we love who have passed on. We pray for the dead, for a quick journey through purgatory. Now I don't think gore and guts are the way to memorialize the day when we meditate on death. And of course it shouldn't be done fatalistically-- all meditation should be performed with some expectation of our redemption and resurrection. But refusing to take the time on Halloween-- or All Hallows Eve, or Hell-oween or whatever you want to call it-- to think about the inevitable reality of dying seems flippant. And since we do celebrate Christ's victory over death and the joy of those who are with Him now, the candy and costumes are just fine by me too.