The Halloween To-Do

Two weeks ago, the pendulum was still swinging over my Halloween proclivities; it had pretty much swung back to the notion that it is probably best if the church ignores it.

That is what my childhood church did about Halloween—nothing. Trick-or-treating was a secular thing; its hours and patrols were run by the local government. During my elementary years in public school, a Halloween celebration usually included a couple creepy stories, an art project, and a classroom costume party after the final recess. The room mothers kindly gave us real sugar cookies and did not try to 'trick' us into more healthful eating by 'treating' us with carrot sticks. (I heard all the politically correct places are doing that now.)

In my high school, observation of the holiday was nonexistent outside hallway chatter. Perhaps the administration felt that keeping it off campus would minimize the destruction of school property; who knows? Some years the community theater raised funds by haunting a local building and charging for the tour. I went to a Quaker College, and if the Society of Friends has an official position on Halloween, it was not made known.

Life moved on and the next thing I heard as a young adult was that Halloween was suddenly Evil. The bob had changed directions; Halloween was a pagan holiday and anyone who celebrated it was dabbling in the occult—or worse.

The church community was having alternative Halloween activities thinly disguised as Harvest Festivals. The kids 'harvested' candy. In hindsight, I think that was a horrible idea. There were standard announcements from the pulpit in those days: Bring in your donations of candy because we don't want our Christian kids to be left out. OK folks, what is wrong with that theology? Hint: The pretense of having an alternative was to avoid worldly things, and with the exception of dark chocolate, candy accrual is pretty worldly.

Further proof of worldliness infiltrating the alternatives is that the celebration of Reformation Day never caught on. This October 31^st anniversary of Martin Luther nailing it in Wittenberg ought to be a day of celebration for the Protestant church. To bad old Marty wasn't known for giving away sweets.

With a half century of thought on the matter, the pendulum swung back and I had decided that Halloween is a secular holiday, no matter how it is handled.

Then I found this:

Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.
Isaiah 26:19

Now, isn't that just about the coolest thing ever? I think the pendulum finally struck 'dead' center.

This statement, originally addressed to collective Israel, was metaphorical as it addressed her deliverance from exile and the restoration of the nation; it can be literal as it applies to the near and coming end times. Better still, a literal interpretation goes world wide.

Metaphorical support: Ezekiel 37: 1-14, valley of the dry bones
Literal support: Daniel 12:2, "Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake – some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence."

Secular All Hallow's Eve: Boo!
God's All Hallow's Eve: Woo-hoo!

Clothesline.

Laundry is one of the more mundane things in life. I was hanging clothes on the line this week and I suppose some folks would, beratingly, call me obsessive/compulsive about the way that I did it, but this is very simply the way that I think.

Let me back up a little...

I often hear people describe things, just general stuff—I'm talking water cooler chit-chat or church pot-latch dinner conversations—and I'll start feeling like I am from another planet. These common, everyday things are so not my experience. For example, I will hear some mom say that she can hardly wait for school to start so that the kids will be out of her hair. I cannot relate. Or some guy will say that he can't go fishing because his wife is making him finish her Honey-do List this weekend. Really? That is completely outside the realm of my experience. Where do these wives get this power? I would never be able to get my husband to ever agree to a Honey-do List, especially if it would mean sacrificing something that he wanted to do.

I'd say that I have a hard time relating to about a quarter of scenarios offered as examples by motivational speakers and in sermons. Doing things that are normal stuff for others, I will be attacked for. I once had a small, well-contained, perfectly legal leaf fire burning, when Jeannine, the demon-possessed neighbor, called the fire department on me. The firemen drove right past our place at first; the driver said he had driven past three larger leaf and brush fires on the way to this call and had had a hard time finding this fire. He wondered why it had been phoned in.
I have a lot of stories like that. I'm totally legal. I'm totally innocent. I'm totally attacked by hypocrites who do far worse. That is my reality.

But today's blog is about the clothesline.


At this time of year, past the autumnal equinox, the clothesline gets only a few hours of midday sun at the western end. Due to the position of a towering water oak, the east end gets less. I hang the slow-to-dry heavy socks and jeans at the western end and the quick drying polyesters at the east. This is normal for me and makes sense. It is not something I stopped and contemplated, I just did it. Everything gets dry this way. If jeans are hung on the east end, they will have damp crotches and pockets whist the flimsy stuff on the western front would have been dry much earlier.

I don't get why anyone would think that is odd. I think making jokes about "getting shed" of your kids when school starts is odd.



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