I'm in the middle of quite a different holiday right now. Tonight was our community Trick or Treat and this coming week will be filled with dress up parties and trappings of a much more secular festival. I have a touch of hesitancy still admitting it, but I love Halloween. I love the fall weather, the changing colors, the sense of winter coming and I certainly like the candy more than I should.
There is a sense of the neighborhood all coming out together as parents fill suburban streets with their children. Teens and those who've seen their children grow past the age of wearing batman suits and princess dresses man the doorways with bowls full of treats. People are genuinely pleased to see their neighborhood children on their doorsteps asking for handouts.
There is a sense of the neighborhood all coming out together as parents fill suburban streets with their children. Teens and those who've seen their children grow past the age of wearing batman suits and princess dresses man the doorways with bowls full of treats. People are genuinely pleased to see their neighborhood children on their doorsteps asking for handouts.
Most of all I love the opportunity to make costumes. The thrill of getting to pick out what or whom you want to be. My favorites are always the homemade ones. The ones that go off the beaten path. The ones that take the familiar in a new direction. Halloween seems to brim with creativity, between pumpkin carving and dress up.
A long time ago I wore the costumes. In particular I remember one that my parents both worked on. I wanted to be an astronaut, so my mom sewed a silver grey jumpsuit, and my dad took a paint can and an old car antenna to his shop and came back with a space helmet. A chunky cassette player strapped to my chest playing "space sounds" recorded from a National Geographic LP completed the ensemble with a pair of moon boots (what we called snow boots at the time).
I still remember the awesome sound that antennae made as I walked through doors and it didn't quite make it through, flexibly sliding underneath to shoot back and forth on top of my head for the next few seconds. The paint can amplified the sound and I wanted to walk through every door I could.
It was an age before costumes with sound effects, so trick or treating took on a new life that year. And our favorite next door neighbor had made homemade popcorn balls. Orange, popcorn balls. They were amazing.
Then we moved.
To a different community.
A community that had a much more limited selection of churches to choose from. A meeting of those of like faith had been a foundational part of our lives and we had expected that to continue. My parents had even scoped out the local church that we would join when we moved. The things that really counted were there. The doctrines that we held were very similar. But the flavor was quite different from what we were used to.
To say it simply, "conservativeness" took on a life of it's own at this new church. No going to movie theaters, though the local video rental store was ok for some fuzzy logic that I was grateful for. And Halloween, well, Halloween was the devil's holiday. Great lengths were taken to explain the pagan roots to us children and the reasons why we should not celebrate or carve pumpkins. No one was to pass out candy, though if you wanted to wrap tracts in cellophane to look like candy and pass them out, that was looked on well enough.
The year we came, the church deacons decided that perhaps we should have a church social, a potluck dinner and the children in the church could come dressed as Bible characters. It was a well intentioned gesture, and I have no doubt looking back that some were indeed sympathetic to the younger crowd. Support also came from older church members whose colorful cellophane tracts were causing the neighbors to skip their houses. Bringing a dish to pass would be easier than hours spent trying to disguise salvation as candy.
I have no doubt that they envisioned happy crowds of young children running about the church basement dressed as shepherds and angels. But there was a problem.
And that problem was us, well, me - to be exact.
I still didn't quite grasp the rules at this new church, and my parents had taken the time to teach me the Bible, so I knew it tolerably by the time I was eleven. Too well for what the leaders had envisioned. I remember my mom getting very quiet as I tried to convince the neighbor boy to come with us. He was worried that he didn't have a "Bible" costume.
"Oh, that's OK - pretty much anything scary is in the Bible. You know Ezekiel has skeletons, and there's the witch of Endor, the ghost of Samuel - going as the grim reaper, that works, we'll just call you the 10th plague, a mummy - you can be a leper. And if you want to be a monster, Revelation is filled with them. Headless horseman - you can be Goliath. All those are in the Bible and lots more!"
I was so excited, and I thought at the time that my mother's quiet was because she was worried about how our neighbor might behave, he was a rambunctious boy and we all had gotten into trouble with some of the things we'd thought would be fun. I really hadn't understood the grown up tensions she must have been facing.
In the end, we'd talked Allan and his sister into coming with us. It took a little stretching to explain that his Darth Vader was the first day of creation when God separated the dark from the light and that Princess Leia was really an angel (Star Wars was unhappily classified as New Age and thus right up there with cults). There were plenty of frowns abounding and the awkward uncomfortableness of it all was something that even us children felt.
My own attempt at a cherubim with scary eyes every where and smoke and fire (thank you Madeline L'engle) was also not well received. And feeling that I needed to defend the choices we had made, I stood in the middle of that basement floor and spouted out the same line of reasoning and logic that I had used in trying to get Allan to come with me. No - I was not a shy child. And I felt a sense of injustice so it got addressed. Addressed with a hundred marker eyes staring accusingly out at my audience between grey painted fluffs of cotton smoke.
I took it that the resulting silence meant I had won the argument, and in particular, one older gentleman with a twinkle in his eye came up to me after things got back underway and shook my hand, "I like you." he whispered haltingly due to a stroke that had paralyzed part of his face. We grinned at each other, my grin filled with taffy and his lopsided. Mr. Vern and I would be good friends from that day forward.
I hadn't really won.
The next year the Halloween Bible Party would return, but there would be a list of rules about what would be acceptable and what would not, no scary costumes allowed. And Allan, though he loved the apple crisp that the church pianist had made, would never come back to church with us.
Me, I learned creative ways to tread the lines that the rules had made. The next year my sister and I came as two foxes that Sampson had tied the tails together and lit on fire. The cute ears and fluffy tails got smiles that disappeared as we screamed and acted out what it might have looked like to have two foxes on fire yelping and running through the fields (sorry mom).
Another year I would come as the statue from Daniels dream - gold and silver spray paint were awful fun to use, and tramping muddy boots all over as part of the costume had a small rebellious sense of satisfaction in it, though that was alleviated during my time on the clean-up crew afterwards.
There is a part of me that would like to rewrite those years similar to Ms. Robinson's epic tale. I was no Imogene Herdman. Though I envy her her impact on that small church. Still, looking back I sense some similarities. My mother bears a strong resemblance to the mom in the book who insisted that the Herdman's be offered roles in the play and then put up with all of the shenanigans that followed. My mom gently guided us in the years after that first one, allowing us enough creativity, and offering options when we thought that going as a plague of boils might be a good idea. She was supportive of us and helped us navigate the new rules at the church while at the same time instilling in us the concept that the Halloween we had celebrated innocently before was not wrong. That we could go forward respectfully at this new place and still retain our own discernment and decisions, even if they might be quietly held decisions.
Mr. Vern and his wife Dora would become a big part of my life. In looking back there was no really huge thing other than that grin that encouraged me and the pocket full of candy that he always had for us children on Sundays. They were saints who understood that kids were loud and ran around and sometimes said unexpectedly awkward things.
Unexpectedly awkward things while dressed as a cherubim shedding cotton batting in the middle of a church basement. Ah the clarity I had on my beliefs at that moment in time.
Things have gotten less clear for me as an adult. I still don't know where all the lines are. I try to respect those who see the danger in the roots of the holiday, and honor their wishes to remain apart from the celebrations, at the same time my own family has dove right into the creativity and fun that is fairly unconnected with anything other than American commercialism. And yes, I understand that there are dangers in that too. Yet there are also dangers in separatism - so trying to find a balance.
I think I look at the issue in light of one of my favorite Disney movies - Polyanna. "When you look for the bad, you will find it." With the rebound idea that if you start looking for the good and find it - you should consider joining in when you can,
because there will still be all too many places where you can't. Where you have to draw lines and stay away.
For me I will bask in a neighborhood night out. A celebration of family and children and creativity. And behind some of the harder things faced I will remember the twinkle in Mr. Verns eye and my mother's quiet support, and the best astronaut costume ever.
__________________________________
A long time ago I wore the costumes. In particular I remember one that my parents both worked on. I wanted to be an astronaut, so my mom sewed a silver grey jumpsuit, and my dad took a paint can and an old car antenna to his shop and came back with a space helmet. A chunky cassette player strapped to my chest playing "space sounds" recorded from a National Geographic LP completed the ensemble with a pair of moon boots (what we called snow boots at the time).
I still remember the awesome sound that antennae made as I walked through doors and it didn't quite make it through, flexibly sliding underneath to shoot back and forth on top of my head for the next few seconds. The paint can amplified the sound and I wanted to walk through every door I could.
It was an age before costumes with sound effects, so trick or treating took on a new life that year. And our favorite next door neighbor had made homemade popcorn balls. Orange, popcorn balls. They were amazing.
Then we moved.
To a different community.
A community that had a much more limited selection of churches to choose from. A meeting of those of like faith had been a foundational part of our lives and we had expected that to continue. My parents had even scoped out the local church that we would join when we moved. The things that really counted were there. The doctrines that we held were very similar. But the flavor was quite different from what we were used to.
To say it simply, "conservativeness" took on a life of it's own at this new church. No going to movie theaters, though the local video rental store was ok for some fuzzy logic that I was grateful for. And Halloween, well, Halloween was the devil's holiday. Great lengths were taken to explain the pagan roots to us children and the reasons why we should not celebrate or carve pumpkins. No one was to pass out candy, though if you wanted to wrap tracts in cellophane to look like candy and pass them out, that was looked on well enough.
The year we came, the church deacons decided that perhaps we should have a church social, a potluck dinner and the children in the church could come dressed as Bible characters. It was a well intentioned gesture, and I have no doubt looking back that some were indeed sympathetic to the younger crowd. Support also came from older church members whose colorful cellophane tracts were causing the neighbors to skip their houses. Bringing a dish to pass would be easier than hours spent trying to disguise salvation as candy.
I have no doubt that they envisioned happy crowds of young children running about the church basement dressed as shepherds and angels. But there was a problem.
And that problem was us, well, me - to be exact.
I still didn't quite grasp the rules at this new church, and my parents had taken the time to teach me the Bible, so I knew it tolerably by the time I was eleven. Too well for what the leaders had envisioned. I remember my mom getting very quiet as I tried to convince the neighbor boy to come with us. He was worried that he didn't have a "Bible" costume.
"Oh, that's OK - pretty much anything scary is in the Bible. You know Ezekiel has skeletons, and there's the witch of Endor, the ghost of Samuel - going as the grim reaper, that works, we'll just call you the 10th plague, a mummy - you can be a leper. And if you want to be a monster, Revelation is filled with them. Headless horseman - you can be Goliath. All those are in the Bible and lots more!"
I was so excited, and I thought at the time that my mother's quiet was because she was worried about how our neighbor might behave, he was a rambunctious boy and we all had gotten into trouble with some of the things we'd thought would be fun. I really hadn't understood the grown up tensions she must have been facing.
In the end, we'd talked Allan and his sister into coming with us. It took a little stretching to explain that his Darth Vader was the first day of creation when God separated the dark from the light and that Princess Leia was really an angel (Star Wars was unhappily classified as New Age and thus right up there with cults). There were plenty of frowns abounding and the awkward uncomfortableness of it all was something that even us children felt.
My own attempt at a cherubim with scary eyes every where and smoke and fire (thank you Madeline L'engle) was also not well received. And feeling that I needed to defend the choices we had made, I stood in the middle of that basement floor and spouted out the same line of reasoning and logic that I had used in trying to get Allan to come with me. No - I was not a shy child. And I felt a sense of injustice so it got addressed. Addressed with a hundred marker eyes staring accusingly out at my audience between grey painted fluffs of cotton smoke.
I took it that the resulting silence meant I had won the argument, and in particular, one older gentleman with a twinkle in his eye came up to me after things got back underway and shook my hand, "I like you." he whispered haltingly due to a stroke that had paralyzed part of his face. We grinned at each other, my grin filled with taffy and his lopsided. Mr. Vern and I would be good friends from that day forward.
I hadn't really won.
The next year the Halloween Bible Party would return, but there would be a list of rules about what would be acceptable and what would not, no scary costumes allowed. And Allan, though he loved the apple crisp that the church pianist had made, would never come back to church with us.
Me, I learned creative ways to tread the lines that the rules had made. The next year my sister and I came as two foxes that Sampson had tied the tails together and lit on fire. The cute ears and fluffy tails got smiles that disappeared as we screamed and acted out what it might have looked like to have two foxes on fire yelping and running through the fields (sorry mom).
Another year I would come as the statue from Daniels dream - gold and silver spray paint were awful fun to use, and tramping muddy boots all over as part of the costume had a small rebellious sense of satisfaction in it, though that was alleviated during my time on the clean-up crew afterwards.
There is a part of me that would like to rewrite those years similar to Ms. Robinson's epic tale. I was no Imogene Herdman. Though I envy her her impact on that small church. Still, looking back I sense some similarities. My mother bears a strong resemblance to the mom in the book who insisted that the Herdman's be offered roles in the play and then put up with all of the shenanigans that followed. My mom gently guided us in the years after that first one, allowing us enough creativity, and offering options when we thought that going as a plague of boils might be a good idea. She was supportive of us and helped us navigate the new rules at the church while at the same time instilling in us the concept that the Halloween we had celebrated innocently before was not wrong. That we could go forward respectfully at this new place and still retain our own discernment and decisions, even if they might be quietly held decisions.
Mr. Vern and his wife Dora would become a big part of my life. In looking back there was no really huge thing other than that grin that encouraged me and the pocket full of candy that he always had for us children on Sundays. They were saints who understood that kids were loud and ran around and sometimes said unexpectedly awkward things.
Unexpectedly awkward things while dressed as a cherubim shedding cotton batting in the middle of a church basement. Ah the clarity I had on my beliefs at that moment in time.
Things have gotten less clear for me as an adult. I still don't know where all the lines are. I try to respect those who see the danger in the roots of the holiday, and honor their wishes to remain apart from the celebrations, at the same time my own family has dove right into the creativity and fun that is fairly unconnected with anything other than American commercialism. And yes, I understand that there are dangers in that too. Yet there are also dangers in separatism - so trying to find a balance.
I think I look at the issue in light of one of my favorite Disney movies - Polyanna. "When you look for the bad, you will find it." With the rebound idea that if you start looking for the good and find it - you should consider joining in when you can,
because there will still be all too many places where you can't. Where you have to draw lines and stay away.
For me I will bask in a neighborhood night out. A celebration of family and children and creativity. And behind some of the harder things faced I will remember the twinkle in Mr. Verns eye and my mother's quiet support, and the best astronaut costume ever.
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