My friend Carel posted an article on her Facebook page from Christianity Today called "Matters of Opinion: Hallowing Halloween", with this comment: "I am so tired of Christians who are so superstitious that they can't have fun on Halloween, and want to take the fun away from everyone else as well! Finally someone who agrees with me! YEA!!!!! You know Harvest Festivals are pagan too."
Carel and her husband Coleman are people who stir the pot simply by being themselves, so I totally relate to them, as this is also my lot in life. The commentary on her page was abundant, hilarious, thought-provoking, and served to spark the inspiration for this writing. Save for little pockets of celebration here and there, I give the holiday little thought. Not because I'm a Christian who is against it, but because other things just seem to take precedence. But Carel's Facebook comments and the article also served to reawaken really good memories of Halloween's past; significant memories that were pivotal to my life.
My mother was a perpetually depressed person and sometimes emotionally disconnected from me, her seventh child. But, she delighted in letting me dress up for Halloween, and I always went trick-or-treating with my older brothers and sisters. Before Mom started working nights, she bought candy, and enjoyed passing it out to the neighborhood kids who rung the bell. For a woman who I felt did not find much pleasure in her life, these moments loom large.
My sister Barbara, who is now in Heaven, decided to throw me a surprise party on Halloween--just because. I was twelve at the time, and a bookworm. For a number of reasons, I didn't have any childhood friends. So my sister invited kids I knew from church, the neighborhood, and some of my school mates. I remember everyone having a great time eating candy and snacks, bobbing for apples, and delighting in each other's costume creativity. And because I was the center of attention and the reason for this gathering, I was automatically deemed "cool"; a concept that was foreign to me, and frankly, still is. That party was a memorable gift, not only because it helped to transform my social status and draw me a bit out of the shell in which I existed during those years, but also because memories are all I have now of my dear sister.
One of the early dates with my husband Lynn was to a Halloween party. We didn't dress up, we just went to hang out with some of his friends. Both of us were falling head over heels in love, so costumes, who came and who didn't, failed to matter--all we were interested in was being with each other. I took a picture of Lynn by the bonfire that the host had set up in their backyard. The light and smoke from the bonfire gave the image an eery glow, but what the picture most reflected was the growing love and contentment in his eyes. I have that image in our wedding scrapbook, and it serves as another rich memory of an eventful Halloween.
So why do I fail to honor these memories and bypass the holiday? For a long time I was part of a charismatic Christian community that deemed Halloween as rooted in evil. The conventional wisdom was you either eschewed it, ignored it, or did something to Christianize it. I can think of one or two times where I went to a prayer meeting on Halloween to pray against the evil, but for the most part, I just let it sail by, not really understanding what the big deal was on either side of the coin.
From my readings in Wikipedia and a few other sources, it seems everyone has co-opted this holiday for their own ends. The Wiccans, the Satanists, the party-revelers all lay claim to what was initially a medieval tradition of ushering in seasonal change and harvest. The roots of the tradition did not start out evil, although certain groups have chosen to use it to further such evil. However, the same can be said about other traditions. Christmas can be a reverencing of the Christ Child or a commercial and gastronomical glut fest. I find that anything of significance is often counterfeited and corrupted--it has to have initial value or meaning for this to occur in the first place.
In the Christianity Today article, Anderson M. Rearick, III lays out his reasoning on why Christians should indeed celebrate, and I won't rehash them here. The article is linked above, so I strongly recommend you read it for yourself. What has inspired me is that I need to reclaim the value of Halloween in my own life, and perhaps consider setting up some form of honoring for the memories I hold dear.
A good place to start is in giving away some candy. When Lynn and I had a home, we did this for a couple of years, but once we had to downsize to an apartment, we stopped. It was quite a kick seeing the creativity and fun children have with their costumes, and the delight they experienced in not only getting free treats, but in sharing their good time with friends and family.
Now that we're back in an accessible duplex apartment, it's something Lynn and I can do together to reawaken that memory, and deepen our bond. So sometime this weekend, I'm going to dig out my Halloween door hangers, and buy a few bags of M&Ms, Snickers, and other candies to have at the ready, in the event trick-or-treaters knock on our door.
I've never been a costume person--I don't even like dressing up for formal events. But I do collect unique earrings, and happen to have a couple of spiders sets in my collection that befit the Halloween tradition. I'm sporting one pair now, and plan to sport the other pair on Monday, on the actual date of All Hallow's Eve.
And the former bookworm still has a wealth of Halloween tales in her bookcase. I devoured Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving on a regular basis, and can still quote the first stanza of "The Raven" from memory. Dragging out the dusty volumes and giving them a Halloween read is another good way to honor the memory of Halloween's past.
The last several years, I've experienced some significant losses, so I'm taking steps toward reclamation in many areas. I might as well add Halloween to that list.
Thanks, Carel for your posting and dialogue spearheading the restoration.
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