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Halloween

It's that magical time of year again - that one night when my small neighbours knock on my door asking for sweeties.  This year, I'm properly prepared: I have two pumpkins (I wanted five, but decided to be thrifty), a big tub of sweets and a tube of 100 glow sticks.  The sweets are my concession to popular demand; the glow sticks are an attempt to represent light in darkness (a symbolism which will doubtless be lost on the kids).  I'm seeing the pumpkin as my main opportunity to communicate something of my Christian faith to my neighbours.

One year, while I was at theological college, Halloween fell on a Sunday.  The new housing estate church I was assigned to met in a church hall on Sunday afternoons and many of the congregation were unaccompanied children.  I googled 'Christian pumpkin carvings' and guess what - there are a lot of ideas out there, America being a country which is big on Halloween and big on Christianity too.  I decided to carve a simple fish and cross design.  I seem to remember the kids liked it.  The following year I'd got married and was living in my husband's house in Chelmsford, and discovered that trick or treating was quite big on the estate where he lived.  Many of the trick or treaters were small children whose parents hovered in the background.  I bought a tub of sweets and handed them out.  It seemed innocent and charming.  

I'm no great fan of gruesome Halloween costumes, just as I don't like horror films - I don't want to give that stuff space inside my head.  As a Christian minister I have occasionally met people who needed prayer, sensing that there were dark spiritual forces affecting their lives, which they wanted rid of.  There are dark spiritual forces, but there is also darkness within all of us, darkness which is not good for us and from which, I believe, God wants to set us free.  I used to watch horror films because, perversely, I enjoyed scaring myself, but eventually realised the films were putting images in my head which were difficult to get rid of, and why would I want to do that to myself?  Why invite the darkness in?

I read once that fairy tales were important for small children because they allowed them to encounter the scary things in life in a safe setting.  Ogres, big bad wolves, wicked witches and so on would scare them, but then the story would have a happy ending and the child would learn that they could face frightening situations and everything would be okay.  Maybe Halloween has a role for all of us in enabling us to face up to the darkness.  We can glory in it: wear the most frightening costume we can find in order to numb ourselves and make out that we're not scared.  Or we can face up to it and then receive the assurance that there is someone who is stronger than all the powers of darkness - who has even defeated death itself.

Comments

  1. derekbrown734931 October 2015 at 07:00

    Halloween is a very ancient festival which predates christianity by several hundred years. For some reason it has become associated with witches. the real witches are followers of the pagan religion of wica or wican. They are not evil but are known to deal in natural herbs and spices in order to treat and help sick people. It was mainly the christians that spread lies about them to try and establish the christian church as a main religion. These efforts culminated in people (notably the witchfinder general) hunting witches for money and murdering innocent people supported by the christian church

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    1. Emma2 November 2015 at 08:42

      Thanks for your interesting comments, Derek. I agree that people calling themselves Christians have been responsible for many atrocities, just one of which was the terrible European witch hunt of the early modern period. I guess my question is whether there are spiritual forces out there which are evil as well as good? I know that Jesus is good, so I call on him, rather than on any other spiritual power or being, which might not be good.

      Delete
    2. derekbrown73495 November 2015 at 02:57

      Hi Emma. The human brain is a very complex organ that has evolved over thousands if not millions of years to deal not only with our current conditions of life but conditions that humans and their ancestors have lived through over those thousands you years. When humans were unaware of the way life evolved they naturally looked for some sort of spiritual influences to explain things they did not understand. One of the abilities of the human brain is the ability to perform evil acts and it is quite understandable when trying to work out why some people do evil acts to put it down to some sort of spiritual influence. I believe that it is people who are evil not some imaginary being for which there is no evidence. You will never get rid of evil as it it part of the human make up all you can do it to do as much good as possible and combat evil when it appears . Praying to someone who has been dead for 2000 years may make you feel better (which is a good thing of course) but it will not fight any evil, You have to do that yourself

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    3. derekbrown73495 November 2015 at 03:00

      sorry about the gramatical errors I will have to pay more attention in future

      Delete
  2. Steve Finnell1 November 2015 at 11:41

    FREE-BREAD BY STEVE FINNELL

    Your local grocery store is offering free bread to anyone who meets the requirements: 1. Bread is free only from Monday to Saturday of the current week. 2. You must be at the store in person to collect your free bread.

    Questions: 1. Will free-bread be given to those died on Friday because they did not have time to go to the grocery store? No, requirements are requirements. 2. Will those who died on Friday without collecting their free-bread be sent to free-bread purgatory so friends and clergy can pray for their free-bread? No, requirements are requirements. 3. Will free-bread be given to the dead if those who are alive collect free-bread by proxy? No, requirements are requirements. 4. Will free-bread be given to those who not go the grocery store because going to the store is a work and the bread would not be free if you had to be obedient to the grocery store requirements? No. rules are rules. 5. Did the grocery store select which individuals would get the free-bread and all others were to be excluded? No, anyone who met the requirements got free-bread. 6: Will those who think all you have to do to receive free-bread is have faith in free-bread and you will get free-bread? No, requirements are requirements.

    God offers the free gift of salvation! You just have to meet the requirements.

    1. Faith: John 3:16
    2. Repentance: Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19
    3. Confession. Romans 10:9
    4. Immersion in water: Acts 2:38, Mark 16:16, 1 Peter 3:21

    YOU ARE INVITED TO FOLLOW MY BLOG. http://steve-finnell.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. derekbrown73492 November 2015 at 03:28

    I had to read the article 3 times before fully understanding what Steve was trying to say. It appears that he is trying compare the idea of the offer of free bread with some idea about a god and what that god is offering. As far as I can see the comparison falls at the first hurdle in that "bread" is a real solid object that you can handle and use. "Salvation" is just an idea with no physical presence. So you know if you have got bread but you do not know if you have got salvation even if you wanted or needed it. In other words it is just a big con job

    ReplyDelete

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