|
Halloween is a festival of imagination. It allows children a safe container to help them deal with death and fear. It also
allows them to claim their inner power as well as their inherent beauty and heroism.
I've noticed that Children tend to wear two kinds of costumes. Some dress up in scary and frightening garb. Others dress
as powerful or beautiful creatures. Both tendencies seem healthy to me.
Halloween gives children a chance to confront their monsters and achieve some sense of mastery by acting out their fears in
a safe and playful way. Halloween also lets children become their heroes and practice feeling empowered, strong and beautiful.
Exercising the imagination is also exercising the soul. Halloween is one of the ways we can expand our gifts of creativity
that open us to the presence of mystery and awe which is foundational to the religious experience.
Theologian Rudolf Otto coined the phrase mysterium tremendum et fascinans to describe the experience of the numinous,
the sacred, the holy other -- that wonderful dread that attracts us with awe and fascination even as we tremble. Halloween
invites children to whet their soulful appetites for mystery and for the power that inspires delight and dread. It is a hunger
that is fed ultimately by God.
Halloween is also a community festival. With decorations that are both dark and enlightening, we open our doors generously,
giving sweet gifts to children who walk boldly to our porches to scare the grownups with their fierce disguises or inspire
our admiration with their lively figures of power and beauty.
Such community activity is grounded in trust. We must trust one another enough to visit and to open doors. Some neighborhoods
inspire trust. Well lit, with sidewalks and access to front doors. Other neighborhoods give other messages. Fences and
spaced houses with recessed entry; streets dark and intimidating to pedestrians who recognize their unwelcome while walking
in the street. I have a friend in that latter kind of neighborhood. He says they get a dozen "trick-or-treaters", maybe
20. I have another friend on the first kind of street. He gets over 200 costumed visitors each Halloween.
Sociologists call the structures that create healthy community "social capital." Good neighborhoods and places to walk, involvement
with schools and networks of relationships help create the social capital that improves communities.
This is a good community, and we want to teach our children that truth. Encourage them to know their neighbors and to visit
them on Halloween night. What other time of year do we go freely from house to house to greet strangers as neighbors and
to give gifts to all who come knocking.
At Halloween we will teach our children either to trust or to fear. It is a deeply religious issue. Healthy religious traditions,
Christian and others, invite trust and dispel fear.
Do not play into fear and succumb to materialism by doing your trick or treating at the mall. Let the children visit neighbors
and real homes. If you need to take them to a place with sidewalks and light, do that. There's plenty of parking at the
county courthouse and an hospitable neighborhood nearby.
Let the religious roots of the Halloween celebration allow you to become a bit more intimate with death. The next day is
All Saints' Day, and November 2 is All Souls' Day. Good days to remember our friends and family who have died. Days to remember
how brief our own life is. Visit a cemetery or columbarium. Imagine one day that you will be there. Death is also the mysterium
tremendum et fascinans.
Let the spirit of this week allow you to face your own dread and fear, and, like the children, claim the power and beauty
and heroism that is inherent within you. After all, all of the Halloween fun is not just for the children. There is a bit
of fear and a bit of glory waiting to be encountered in all of us.
|
