This Halloween is really different this year with a heightened sense of awareness and skin crawling possibilities. A day Hollywood loves to capitalize on by finding ways to scare us which, for some unknown reason, we seem to love…some of us anyway. I have a large aversion to Halloween, mostly because of some experiences I had when I was a young adult but am willing to do the Trunk or Treat at the church giving children an alternative with safety.
American Halloween started as a way to celebrate the harvest but as more immigrants came, they brought their customs and the pagan traditions like Samhain from Ireland and Scotland which honored the harvest and the dead, with people dressing up like dead people demanding sweet treats. This year Halloween also has an extra factor to make your skin crawl a bit as it’s a Blue Moon. All that really means is that it is the rare phenomenon of a second full moon in one month. First one for this month was on October 1st.
This picture from the internet even looks creepy with the tree silhouette against a blue colored moon. But with the year we have had, a blue moon and in America we add in a time change, making for a night of things that seem fearful. So tomorrow we are having a fun drive thru instead of the normal walk thru for the kids to give them a different version of Halloween, and of course there is lots of candy. Due to Covid concerns, we were told to display a purple pumpkin to show that we were Covid compliant and that we are as safe as possible…so I give you the purple family with all their best smiles.
But I want to remind you as well of beauty we can also have in not having to be fearful.
With all the craziness of Covid right now, all over the world, we can lean on Christ and let him relieve us of our fears letting him drive the car for awhile. There is an old story I love that reminds of how Jesus rides in our cars; we can zoom by him leaving him standing on the side of the road, not getting any advantage of his wisdom or we can stop and pick him up, put him in the back seat and listen to the wisdom we want to listen to ignoring the rest OR… we can drive up, slide over into the passenger seat and let him drive. Although that is the hardest way…I think it is probably the preferred way.
But in all things that you do remember to always do them with Kindness as kindness is a true reflection of Love, and Love is a true reflection of God.
