Halloween & All Saints

It’s October, so Halloween is on my mind.

I have already put up purple string lights and a device to project ghostly shapes on the side of my house at night. I have a skull and skeletal hand on my mantle with glowing glass pumpkins and fall décor. I even have several Halloween outfits picked out for my mini-poodle Marcus this year.

Personally, I’ve always loved the holiday. Perhaps it’s the air of mystery, of something that is beyond our understanding on that day. Maybe, like the running joke in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all the real monsters actually hate Halloween and stay home that night.

Some Christians once shunned the day, claiming that it was a time when the veil between living and dead was at its thinnest, when the way was open for spirits to cross over. There are still Christians today who believe it’s “the Devil’s day,” a wild party for demons and evil. But even if that is the case, I think we’ve come up with the perfect antidote: millions of children running around, spreading joy and laughter as they celebrate by eating candy and sharing it with friends.

Halloween wasn’t always a festival of mischief and frights. Many of the holiday’s traditions stem from much older faith practices associated with both All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day (Nov. 1st). For instance, trick-or-treating is derived from an All Saints’ Day custom in Ireland and Britain, when the poor would go door to door asking for food. In exchange, they would offer prayers for the donor and for their departed loved ones. There’s something about this practice that I love, because so often we think of acts of charity as only what people “with” can offer those “without.” In this tradition, those receiving had something of profound value to offer in return.

Rather than boycotting the holiday, as some do, there are ways to make Halloween a holiday that benefits others once again. In 1950, a Philadelphia Sunday School class trick-or-treated with decorated milk cartons and collected $17 to help children suffering in post-World War II Europe. Since that first Halloween collection, UNICEF, an organization that helps children in crisis around the world, has been providing trick-or-treaters with a small box to collect spare change. The proceeds go to help children’s education, welfare, health, and food security, from combatting drought-induced malnutrition in Ethiopia to setting up schools for child refugees in Lebanon. Over $177 million has been raised in the 75 years of UNICEF’s “Kids Helping Kids” Halloween effort in the U.S. alone. (Interested? Request your free boxes here: unicefusa.org/trick-or-treat)

Truthfully, I worry far less about how the demonic supernatural are faring on October 31st than I do about how our own actions are impacting this world. What do you have to offer others? Your prayers? Your gifts? How do you help fight the evils that already exist in our world-- racism and consumerism, preservation of power, hoarding of resources? We do evil enough, without any help from “the other side.”

But that brings us to our strange and wonderful belief in Jesus. In addition to being part of the problem, we are also part of the solution. Every day we have the opportunity to participate in the building of God’s kingdom here and now, transforming this world to a place where all belong, and all are fed and loved. Happy Halloween and All Saints Day.

~ Pastor Abbie Huff