"Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us …” Hebrews 12:1 (NASB)
We’re getting close to Halloween once again, and I can’t help but notice all the scary movies popping up all over the place on the various cable, satellite, and streaming services clogging what used to be called the airwaves. I’m not up enough on either technology or science to know how to describe what’s being clogged, but clogged is what it is.
I confess I feel sort of bad for the devil these days. It used to be you could just make fun of the guy in the red jammies, horned tail, and pitch fork. Somehow, the powers to be have put the poor old dufus on steroids in order to sell that hot, smelly mess that is supposed to pass for entertainment.
Yes, some people like to get their adrenaline rush that way, and that’s fine. It’s there for them, and I’m not into censorship. I really do try to mind my own business, because that’s how I was raised. MYOB was held right up there alongside the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you). I think if people took those two points to heart, we would have much happier neighborhoods.
Getting back to the devil, I think he gets way too much credit for all the bad stuff that happens in our world. He, or his minions, don’t sit atop our shoulders whispering mischievous ideas into our ears. I believe each of us is quite capable of doing bad things on our own without any spiritual help from Old Scratch. He just makes a convenient scapegoat for us when we want to behave like idiots.
When I was a child (uh, oh … here comes the old “back in my day” yarn we old codgers spin as we sit in our rockers on the front porch, chew our ‘baccy, and reflect on current affairs) we kids dressed up, most often in home-made costumes, and made our rounds as cowboys, pirates, fairies, queens or princesses and, occasionally, ghosts and goblins. My grandparents handed out homemade popcorn balls (delicious!) while others handed out apples, walnuts, and (of course) the holy grail of Halloween treats: store-bought chocolates.
The point behind all the dressing up was not the devil, but the saints we’d be honoring on November 1 (the Feast of All Saints, AKA: All Hallows Day). Since we have separation of Church and State in this country (for which I give thanks to God!) most American kids don’t make the connection of Halloween with All Saints, having been indoctrinated with a lie: that the day is all about ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night.
As always, a day (and evening) that is all about God’s holy (and historical) people has been turned upside down, twisted inside out, and converted into a day that’s about Bubba in the red pajamas. What balderdash!
There’s nothing I can say or do here that will send us back to the 1950s, convince parents to accept homemade sweets from strangers, or run our treats to the local fire station to have them checked out by metal detectors (like we did during the “razor blades hidden in apples” scare of the mid ‘60s). No, I just want folks to have fun, enjoy the candy holiday, and experience the pleasure of going around dressed up however we like, without being judged.
Our modern Halloween may no longer reflect the religious tradition from which it sprung, but rather than being a scary day, it can be a day wherein we explore tolerance and celebrate diversity. Beneath those costumes beat the hearts of children, not the devil. We deliver unto them good things to eat, not to avoid getting our houses vandalized, but to sweeten the lives of our neighbors.
For the rest of us, Halloween reminds us that, yes, we are dying, but we live; “[we] are reborn through death’s dark night to endless day” (James Quinn). The devil was conquered over twenty centuries ago (from a Christian perspective), so let’s forget the movies and just strive to be the treats God wants us to be. Now that (BOO!) is a scary thought here in this, our valley.
Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)
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