The Subversiveness of Halloween

A friend of mine told me she wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween growing up, so now participating feels subversive.  That word landed like a dart in a target.  Isn't that just the thing?  A death-day turned into a festival, an inevitable grief turned into a celebration.  We dress up to mock--or scare--those very things that forbid us from going out into the night and go out despite (to spite?) them.  We look death in the face and say, "Be not proud.  You're not all that."  We wrap ourselves in the name of Christ (a garment far more real than a costume) and no harm will befall us.

I love love love Halloween.  It's intuitive and paradoxical, making up the pattern common to the ways of the Church.  And we need ghosts.  We need ghosts to whisper to us in the failing light that there is more to this world than meets the eye--that there is rhythm and reason (though perhaps not immediately obvious) in our existence, and if we embrace it it won't just make us happy; it'll bring us home.

A still, small voice

Then the LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD.  Behold, the LORD is about to pass by.”  And a great and mighty wind tore into the mountains and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind.  After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.  And after the fire came a still, small voice.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

-- 1 Kings 19: 11-13

Never underestimate gentleness. There is so much power in being gentle.