I have never been one of those Christians who disapproves of Halloween. I have happy memories of Halloweens as a child. That was back in the 70's before we could buy costumes, so my gang of childhood friends would spend weeks planning our costumes.
As I've gotten older, I've done a lot of thinking about costumes and what they mean. I've watched lots of friends and colleagues dress up, and I've done my share of amateur psychoanalysis as I've seen what they create.
I've also been thinking about God, who knows our real selves underneath our costumes, who knows our essential selves that we so often lose track of or our essential selves we haven't ever had a chance to know and discover. I'm thinking about God who delights in our creativity, whether or not it's when we create our costumes or tell our scary stories or bake some Halloween treats.
Some of us come out scary religious traditions, with a god who doesn't take much delight in us. Some of us come out of religious traditions with a god who plays tricks on us, a god who judges us, a god who condemns us and banishes us. Some of us grew up with scary stories of hell and other types of perdition, stories full of the kinds of details of tortures far more frightening than any we might see in scary movies.
God knows our essential selves--I tend to think of my essential self as my soul, although I realize that idea might not be theologically sound. God knows our spirit.
Medieval people would have seen this 3 day period of Halloween, All Saints and All Souls, as a time when spirits got loose and roamed the earth. Some of our customs come from that time. People dressed differently to hide from roaming spirits. People kept Halloween bonfires burning to keep the evil spirits away and to keep a vigil on the feast days of All Saints and All Souls.
My brain keeps coming back to the idea of spirits. Does our view of spirits and ghosts affect our view of the Holy Spirit?
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