It's baa-aak!  That time of the year when nearly everyone goes a bit wacky.  There are at least three levels of wackiness.

We'll get to the extremes in a minute, but first  the great middle ground.  This is the time when children of all ages get to pretend they are someone else without being diagnosed "DID" [Dissociative Identity Disorder - formerly Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD]

Neighborhoods everywhere are flooded with characters from movies, cartoons, sports, etc. representing the whole spectrum - horror to humor - and everything in between.  It is a time of approved begging.  Kids out after dark, going door to door, loot sacks in hand, giving all the neighbors the opportunity to reverse the 'taking candy from a baby' syndrome.  And people actually plan a night at home [self defense?] just so they can be there to give away the stuff!

 

Hershey, Mars, and other companies have not lost the significance of the day; they package ever larger bags of slightly smaller candy bars to be displayed in ever larger sections of the stores.

This year it seems they started much earlier with a new advertising approach, raising the suspicion that adults might actually be feeding their own sweet tooth under the guise of buying Hallowe'en  candy.  Now, who would ever do a thing like that?  Really!

Just a thought: has it ever occurred to you that this whole celebration may be brought to us by the American Dental Association?  Every organization has some cause to support.

So, what could possibly be wrong with a scene like this?  It sounds like a temporary return to the days of old time radio, when people not only knew the definition of "neighbor"  but actually lived like that.

I am not here referring to the distortion of the day that results in stopping by the police station to run the kids' candy through a metal detector.  That is simply a spillover of nineties nastiness into parental paranoia.  [Please exercise reasonable caution - there have always been bullies and psychopaths.]

Now about the extremes.  On the one hand is that group who wants to take seriously the superstitious origin of the day.  In the history of Christendom it was the practice to set aside a day to honor a particular saint, but over time they collided with the finite number of days in the year.  So, how about one day when we honor all the saints who don't have their own day?  What a concept!  All Saints Day.

Enter the superstition.  If all this goodness, righteousness and holiness is going to be celebrated on one day, the day before must certainly be filled with evil getting in its last licks.  The name of the day?  Why not "The Eve of All Saints' Day" or Hallowe'en?

The extreme version of this point of view is the rigid Christian who will have nothing to do with anything like this.  He will fortify himself by denying that there even is such a day, pull his curtains shut, turn off the lights, and go to church where he will be safe from all this evil influence.

The other extreme belongs to the people who have bought the explanation and use the time to express their rejection of anything Christian.  They will be meeting in covens or similar places, and exalting Mother Earth, or the Power of Self, or Nature.  In a word they honor the creation and separate themselves from the Creator.   Usually without being aware of it, they have bought into the lie of Satan.

C.S. Lewis writes in the preface to THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.  One is to disbelieve in their existence.  The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.  They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail both with the same delight."

The Hebrew and Christian Bible describes a God who created everything that exists [cosmos, galaxies, solar system, earth and everything in it].  This God has given one  part  of that creation an almost unbelievable opportunity, friendship with Himself.  But the human has been given also the capacity to reject that friendship.

All the rest of the creation functions according to its prescribed nature.  Only the human is able to resist its own impulses.  We will explore this again in a future column.  I conclude with a positive suggestion for this Hallowe'en.

Ponder this thought: "The best treat is to know that God loves you;  the worst trick would be to miss the best treat."

Happy Hallowe'en!

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