Song: This Joy | The History of Halloween |

Friends,

I'll be away this Halloween. Its a little disappointing because my neighborhood goes all out for the holiday. Many people decorate, and in our rural town many people come to our community to get treats. I've heard the town is sending a fire truck just because kids like them. The police usually hand out light sticks.

Remember to hang onto your joy.

-Elizabeth

Halloween Is Resistance

I think that celebrating Halloween is an act of resistance. I mean ignoring the commercialism, of course.

It is an act of resistance to simply share with your neighbors. A holiday that is centered not on family, not on a famous person, not on a historical event, but just to go to each house and ask for candy. Or to greet each neighbor and give them candy. No test of eligibility, no questions asked except the friendly question about their costume. We don't skip houses based on politics, citizenship, religion, race, or other identity. We declare "we are connected to each other."

Halloween insists on resistance by poking fun at fear. We think of scary things and then explore how to represent them. We do not let the fear stop us, rather we try it on and see where it takes us. And then we laugh at the results. We insist that we are stronger than all that there is to fear.

It is an act of resistance to engage in unrestrained joy. Uninhibited giving. Unchecked silliness. We do not let the struggles of our time be what keeps us from laughter or enjoyment. We brave the cold, or an over-hot costume. We gather in groups to share our experiences. We insist to our leadership that you can try to make us afraid; instead we refuse to silence our laughter. You can try to make us shrivel but we refuse to dampen our joy.

Halloween is drag. We try on different genders, different species, heck I know someone who went trick or treating as a box of crayons. We try on these different identities for the fun of it. We put on a costume and look in the mirror, figuring out if we should add a wig or a necklace or some false teeth. It is about trying on something that feels very different, just to see how it feels. It is declaring that difference is beautiful.

Halloween is a time that our children can wander beyond their normal boundaries. They can go further and often travel as groups of just children. They can try on identities, and try out interacting with the adults at each home. My nephew remembers going to a haunted house when he was 12. The rules were that you must be 13 to enter, so he lied about his age. "Was that scary?" I asked. "It was scarier to have lied than it was to see the haunted house."

It is a gathering of community. Many communities have a town Halloween, sometimes on another day. When I worked in Ashburnham, MA there was a tiny downtown, and rural homes spread over a long and dark roads. Families got in the habit of coming to the three roads that make up downtown for safer trick-or-treating. The police department promoted the act and asked people to donate candy to provide for those downtown houses to hand out and the whole town came together to be sure there was plenty.

The Kingdom of God, and Halloween, is about excess. Get out there, visiting your neighbors. Stay home and open your door. Eat the candy! Welcome the stranger. Laugh at the absurdity. Imagine a world where it is that easy to simply knock on a door.

Does your church have a halloween tradition? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening.

The History of Halloween from the History.com.

The Resistance Revival Chorus says that Joy doesn't come from the world, and so the world can't take it away! (3:48)

Please forward this email to others who might be interested. If you got this from someone else, use the button below to subscribe to the free Act! Be Church Now email newsletter.