Friday Sabbath: What's scarier than Halloween?

It's people who use Halloween during your innocent childhood to scare you into believing what they believe...

I was raised in a quiet Lutheran church among questioning, thinking intellectuals. The church used to host these fantastic Halloween parties. I'm sure this was simply to guarantee any families without good neighborhoods a safe environment in which their children can dress up and get candy. Older kids would also put on costumes and pass out candy downstairs where there were classrooms to stand in as the doors of houses. We'd knock. "TRICK OR TREAT!" The compliments would flow and the candy would be fairly distributed among our bags. Move on the the next door. And so on.

We also did all the fun goofy fall stuff... bob for apples, play word games, make crafts, pretend to be the character we came dressed as in a skit, etc. It was pure, imaginative fun.

Halloween had always been my favorite holiday. There are oodles of pictures of me with my pumpkins, in my costumes... I dressed up for the first time during Halloween as a clown. From there I went on to witches, ice princesses, unicorns (that was an amazing costume Mom made for me back when I was obsessed with The Last Unicorn), Cleopatra, Queen Guinevere, The Living Dead, etc. I liked the opportunity to be someone else. To drop my problems, my worries, my growing pains, and be someone with new problems, new situations, new powers, etc.

Halloween was an extension of the therapy that theater provided for me... but that's another story...

One year, I think I was about eight years old, I visited with my father for one of our regular weekends and went to his church on Sunday before returning to my mother. These people were Fundamentalist Southern Baptists (Please note: This church might have different views from other Southern Baptist congregations... within any denomination, each community consciousness changes.) I went to Sunday School without a clue of what was about to happen.

I heard things that had never been discussed in my Lutheran classes. They brought up the devil and how he tempts people on Halloween... how he manifests himself to hurt you. He comes in the form of nice neighbor ladies who put needles in your candy that tear up your insides as you swallow them... it will most likely kill you. That's what would make the devil happy. To wipe you out.

That scared me to death. I was pale with sad disbelief as I looked at the teacher, asked questions to calm the situation (All we do is dress up, is that so bad?... apparently, there is no good whatsoever about the holiday of pretending). She shook her head at me and sighed with every inquiry (I could tell she was thinking I was "one of those people" as she huffed and puffed and rolled her eyes back into her ignorant head). I was thinking of all the questions I would have for my mom when I went home... I don't remember if we ever talked about that day, but I know I settled into thinking that the Baptist teacher took it too far.

We didn't talk much about the devil where I was raised. You inevitably hear of the devil during certain readings from the New Testament, but he (or she) was never presented as some sort of Boogie Man who is out to get you, to kill you if he/she can.

This is a concept for which I have no tolerance. My experiences have led me to believe that mankind has enough evil within it that there's no need to blame it on some winged demon whispering in our ears. There are "good" and "bad" influences everywhere. The choice, at the end of the day, is our own. I don't need to live in fear of some invisible bad guy to keep me in line. I know what I consider to be "right" and "wrong" and I do my best to uphold my own high standards. When I do something "wrong," the devil most certainly did not make me do it. I did it myself. I would never be willing to trade my personal integrity, my responsibility for myself, and settle for the lame excuse that, if I don't behave, the devil will hire a sniper to gun me down.

Admittedly, some terrible things have happened to people participating in the community celebration of Halloween... but I blame that on evil-minded people, not some cigar-chomping, mustached Italian man in red pajamas carrying a pitch fork. Communities have changed greatly over the decades and, sadly, it's getting harder and harder to trust our actual neighbors.

That doesn't mean there's any point in not celebrating the fun of frivolity and make-believe. While carelessness can lead to trouble, that's true no matter what day it is. Even Jesus kicked back a few with the members of his community. We just need to be mindful of strangers and find safer ways to play (Hmmm... like in a church or within a big family or a group of friends). I don't think there's any service delivered to children when you cause them to fear having a good time... when you back them into a Crime and Punishment sort of corner. Want to lecture parents? I'm sure they can handle it. But using fear as a method to turn children to Gd... well, how pure is that faith when you're just running away from the enemy?

So, I hope to see plenty of goblins and ghosties and Harry Potters and Wild Things and what have you. Halloween is my time to mend my church scars in the chilly moonlight and dance among the other masked revelers enjoying the freeing power of pretending, of creating some fantasy and excitement.