Very funny Blog. Thanks for the laugh.

Hallowe'en, or All Hallow's Eve, doesn't really celebrate death or darkness. It's one of three days celebrated by the church - All Hallow's, All Saints, and (in the RC South American traditions) Day of the Dead. It has its origins in Christianity as much as Christmas and Easter do. At this time, in all the various celebrations, the barriers between the worlds are at their thinnest, and spirits of the dead can return. Ancestor Night gets in here too. All Saints used to be in May, until one of the popes got the great idea to stick it right after Hallowe'en. People dressed up in costume to frighten away evil spirits. The story of Jack O'Lantern is a religious story from the Irish tradition. Carving turnips and putting a light inside came from the Scots and Irish, and here pumpkins were easier to carve, hence we started that tradition. "Hop Tu Naa" comes to us from the Isle of Man, complete with witches and other things. Mixed in there is some of the Samhain celebration, which was the end of summer and the beginning of winter.

I just happen to have a chapter in a book called "Hallowe'en: Treat or Trick?" published by Cambridge Scholars. The chapter is  "Hallowe'en and the Church: Great Pumpkins! (or How to Suck All the Fun Out of Life)". Unfortunately the book is wildly expensive but I'd be happy to send the chapter to anyone who wants to read it.....

Poor Linus... out there in the pumpkin patch waiting......

Death, or the unknown has a great fear inscribed in all of us because of Roman traditions (and earlier), even though our own Holy Script states at least 366 times ... be not afraid! "NO FEAR" ... whatever way you would like to paraphase the comment.

Yet fear is the greatest way to overcome an independant soul of thinking ... arrest its intent and take control of another's pace ... territory. Is this moral, ethical ... should it be legal although it is because of all the holes in the fabric of law that was woven around a deuce of simplicity:

"Love your own ideal (gods), and empirically care for your neighbour!" You never know what you might learn from the environmnet of those neigh peoples. Excuse the paraphrase, its the only way I could get by some of the corruption introduced by trans-anti-dis-establismentaryism. Is that tri, or quad form of negatives? Double negatives are nothing and we demand simplicity in a world that uses words in such ways! No wonder we're in such a stew PID state ... collectively hating socialism!

Simple minds, simple solutions ... the ideal of complex people that hate a thinking persona. Is there sumthin underneath IT aL ... I'sis, or is that  J'sues in mote've translation of complex Babble on' ...

Visible darkness translates to lite on the mind in pure satyr ... shadows like Tamyr under that tree with the powers of Jude awe ... ode story in the boque!

The day has arrived.  All Hallow's Eve.  We justify Halloween by its Christian, or at least its western european Christian syncretist roots.  But, like yoga, hasn't the form and content stayed the same but the meaning changed?  The traditions (which pre-date their Christian modes as much as Easter and Christmas traditions do) are so distant from our current worldview.  How is it that we've managed to carry over these rituals from a very supernatural and animistic past but completely lost all of the meaning?  We see the beliefs that prompted our ancestors to perform these acts as primitive (the dead don't come back to life...  You can't scare away evil spirits with scary costumes and there is no great pumpkin...  Poor Linus) and yet we continue to act out the story when most have completely forgotten the story.  So we created our own generation's story (much like Christmas with Santa, elfs, reindeer and all that) that has, like the new Christmas myth, only the most superficial of meanings...  If you perform correctly (dress up for Halloween or be 'nice' for Christmas) you will be rewarded with a surplus of the things that your parents ordinarily withhold from you.  Perhaps Halloween is as dangerous as Easter...

Perhaps - but every tradition and celebration goes through these changes. Rather than avoid them, why not teach them? I've preached at two different churches  - a sermon on the origins of Hallowe'en, focussed services around it - dressed as a witch, talked about Jack O'Lantern - and encouraged parents not to keep their kids from having fun just because some of the origins have been lost. We really do suck all the fun out of life.

There are people who won't celebrate Hallowe'en because it "isn't a Christian holiday".  Neither is Easter, neither is Christmas - if we go back to the roots and all the various threads which brought us what we have today. Hallowe'en is *just as* Christian as the other two. Decorating trees was not a Christian practice, nor was decorating with greens; the "yule" isn't Christian; the Advent wreath began in pagan rituals as a huge wagon wheel with greens and candles on it - celebrating the return of light to the world. Celebrating birthdays was not done by the early Jews - so Jesus' birthday would not have been celebrated. Even the date has been all over the map. So why do we do it?

It seems to me, as a clergy person - we should not avoid these holidays or try to pare them down - but teach our congregations why we do what we do, where it came from, how the threads came together, and enjoy them to their fullest for what they are and were. Rather than taking the meaning away, it can make the celebration richer.

But I've observed that very few clergy really take the time to teach their congregations. I guess it's too much trouble.

I believe you get my meaning.  Just because something is dangerous (which is probably just a literary figure I'm using) doesn't mean that it should be abandoned.  Cars are dangerous and so are guns.  In fact any engagement of the world outside of us has its dangers.  I think I'm referring less to the specific memories fading as much as to the major shifts.  The pagan rituals that most (all if Tom Harpur is right) of our liturgy come from had not just form and content, they also had a reason for coming into existence.  And it's the loss of reason that I'm worrying about.  What reason lies behind our celebrations now?  Are we celebrating little more than a chance to change our scarcity into abundance? How can we teach a child that their abundance of candy this evening is because generations ago we celebrated the abundance of harvest?  Can we teach ourselves that?  I wonder how many congregations really want to be taught?  I don't think very many would be pleased to hear that their beloved holidays are almost entirely the result of syncretism with pagan rites.  Some might...  I guess that's really why the clergy don't teach...  It's hard to know how to teach something when the people you're teaching want solid ground and all you know is that this or that *may* be the case, or might not be.

But if "it" weren't pared down would authority lose control to a knowledgeable flood of common folk (Pagan in old tongues)?

Authorities have tried to simplify the story of existence and beyond (myth) for all time a Maas a' Donian transfer of thought as expressed as well by Roman tradition: "he's dangerous man that thinks!" So they killed any common person with light (spiritual, spy rite into ID) knowledge of the story ... or confined them like Steven. Consider the events of Masada, or the high road we call Apian Way, where 3000 intellectuals were crucified to prove that common folk shouldn't think. Do we follow that word of (Mac A' veil ION) Law? It must be a joke, an enigma to the powers on high ... OZ in old tongues of the story Kode. Freudian th'aught ...

Is the whole stuggle inside the mystery we call self about containing light, or sharing like Eros of Sharon ... that has a far deeper meaning in old tongues (linguist-ICs). Did you know IC is an old Pagan Symbol of Christ? O' I ... Scie as a piercing moment of existentialism. But would we go there for fear of a Roman, or other terrorizing tradition ... only Lingnus remains out there in the field ... string theory of the woven fabric ... the symbol is much larger than the sign! Visible light is only a whim in the whole unknown. What does a mortal know? Almost nothing in the infinite expanse. Further more their afraid oft heir (Eris) shadow in a morphing of wraught words in physical form.

Thus the struggle on Thessalonian "C" a general tension between words in writ (roue)versus the general spoken word. There's always the deviant form ... that's difference in perspective as whether you are looking from inside a secure circe-us, or outside like a God (love) excluded by a covenant of fear in this dimension of time. If you superimpose these perspectives you get a triangle upright and one reciprocal ... the Star of A'Don's or the Seal of Solemon in other traditions of speech ... get thee beyond thy's elphe satyr ... or is that the Kole shadow of satin in a self-centred circe-us like this world. Some spirits await patiently to escape the pain introduced to the lower tier (un-touchables) by those above them in the pyre-amid fantasy that is provided as illusion to deter the daemons while Love stews in an able pot ... burried somewhere out of touch of M'n Kynd ... a sort of means to and end that's Rae nude beginning? Chil'ed of th'o ver sus child of God!

ID's one eL ova anne nig maas in word corrupted in simplification of the story of one complex creation ... imperfect and moe Vine in the continuum ... cause Moe logical ... hated by dirty (earthy) powers? Awe sum integral if'n eu can put IT all together as IC .. integral chip off the old dark block in Meis Ka ...

  Meis-UN carving up difficult space ... because man doesn't wish to know the truth about ... GOD/Love ...

Do we fear God (allal in one expression) or take the alternate meaning of reverence and fear for the great unknown? Did you know our "sworn upon" Good Boque states no less than 366 times to have no fear and yet humankind in a moor aL state misses the point. Approach God in a state of knowing the consequences ... a dieing to this tier of Jack ob ean latter times ... and on and one goest the story of ... "what greater Love ..." as just ripple in time ...

The line-'s thin in the pum kyn patch ... just matrix to keep us from falling through fear instead of reverance of all thet surrounds us ... outside (sans, pas, w/o m'n, myth of a gift of Love ignored?) Did you know an old meaning of myth is just ... beyond? One has to get out more, but authorities confine the potential of d'min'd in fear ... but although dim'd ... IT never goes completely out even in temporal's leep ... jus Ta hop' ... 

H'allal: is glory bea-St ... Eyore glowing all alone in the dark ... like sole sign ... just wee pit of Light!

Thank you for your correction Franota.  I am unfortunately limited in my background and will probably err many more times in my academic career.  What I particularly like about Halloween is that the excluded middle comes to the forefront.  As you've said it has roots in an understanding of the permeable nature of the division between spiritual world or world of the dead (sheol or gehinnom, perhaps even hades) and the corporeal world.  The church has often been afraid of the middle ground.  It hasn't seemed to appreciate things that don't fall neatly into the "of God, of Satan" dichotemy.  I've come out of a very conservative background and, although seeking ordination from the United Church, don't seem to give the Church's contribution to these things very much credit.  What I was trying to pose (and probably didn't do well at) was that regardless where these traditions came from, the reason that they came into existence was a response to something in the world around these ancient people that they needed to cope with.  As a society we've lost the supernatural world that helped us cope with our own mortality, regardless if it exists or not, but kept the traditions alive.  I would like to see us not only re-examine the past and understand where these things came from, but to also wrestle with the future and see if the worldview that spawned them continues to be valid for us.

Lost our supernatural world ... like the metaphysical mind ... sole that we stand upon and don't choose to kno-wit'?

"And what if a man gains the whole world and loses his sole?" It's biblical you know and suggests we should be balanced ... sum what in the middle as means to proper end! Now isn't that a who-T?

I wonder if it's more difficult when one has come from a conservative background where there are absolutes. At the Hallowe'en Conference in Glasgow, it was fascinating to see the mis-interpretation and misinformation about the origins of Hallowe'en - simply to shore up a conservative view of the world. I was fortunate to have a minister father who was always interested in new ideas in theology, and had no problems questioning anything - guess that was inherited :)

I think what frightens a lot of Christians about looking at the roots of our observations, is that they have to accept that it isn't incredibly original from some perspectives,or that what Jesus  may or may not have said wasn't all original either.

My interest in the origins of Hallowe'en was twigged when I heard, on two different occasions, people telling their children they didn't celebrate Hallowe'en because it wasn't Christian. As I mentioned earlier, I preached at two different churches on the origins of Hallowe'en, All Saints etc. In both cases parents came to say that they were pleased to know the reasons behind many of the practices - but also pleased to know that it was OK for their kids to go out.

So I ask you, WarriorCleric, as you move to ordination, isn't that what our role is? To teach people to think for themselves, to think widely rather than more narrowly? I believe it is....and I think I hear you saying that as well.

OK for kids to go out and wonder ... about dite aL?

 Oft times I grow weary of thinking.  What I mean by the loss of the supernatural world is the loss of the mindset that explained everything.  We could find other worldly solutions for everything.  Otherworldly reasons for anything that happened to us.  It was comforting.  Then I thought a little harder and stopped blaming something in the wild blue yonder.  But to wonder about something even beyond our ability to think...  Now that's more like the God experience I'm trying to find.  

But beyond is "myth" in human tongues! Is this alien power .. like emote in this place?

One has to draw ID from some place ... bottom less well of druid ... a balanced thinker ... with abundant emotive? Is emote singular, plural, multiple or infinite like God's pace?

Ona and on it goes in a bent of laughter ... the StOI'c hates IT as lost power of Ego ... cognizance of who and what we are ... central point of the pyre-amid-us ... Ba'th' She Ba! ... Pure mystery to mortals? Meta phor of menora ... spiritual glow of one who knows the sacred ... just KISS Principal ... reach out and touch the fabric ...

All eles is something else ...