Trick or treat

I heard a conversation on the radio yesterday about a proposal to relocate the observance of Hallowe'en permanently to the last Saturday of October and also make that weekend, rather than the first weekend of November, the time for the time change.  The main reason seemed to be to allow kids to go trick-or-treating not on a school night, and to give them even more time to sleep off their sugar rush on a Sunday morning.

Really brought home the secularization of our holy-days.  Also made me imagine somewhat fancifully the delight among the vast array of dark spirits -- once believed to be afoot and seeking openings into our world on the Eve of All Hallow's, at such secular naivete, and how it leaves us so foolishly vulnerable.

Traditionally (in Celtic regions, at least) the night of Oct 31 to Nov 1 has been regarded as the time of transition from summer to winter -- the beginning of the "dark half" of the year.  As any time of transition, this is by nature a "thin time" when spirits pass more easily than usual between this world and the other.  And given the time of year, it's dark spirits and the malevolent -- or even just mischievous, souls of the dead that especially seek entry into our world, our homes and our lives. 

And how to protect one's self and one's home and family?  By appeasing the dark spirits (or people dressed up to represent them) with treats, and/or by warding them off with your own representation of an evil spirit or a soul of someone dead (think jack-o-lantern).

But of course we don't believe in any of that kind of stuff anymore, do we? 

And if Hallowe'en is really just about candy and how much of it can be bought and collected, why not shift it to Saturday night and let the kids sleep in the next day?

Of course, it isn't just about that.  It's also about community, and about grumpy people like me having our hearts enlarged as we happily hand out candy to total strangers, try to guess at their costumes, and savour their happy voices.

And that could be done just as well on a Saturday.

But I wonder ... do we lose something when we schedule holy-days and once-spiritual activities according to our convenience? 

I wonder if our desire to rationalize everything that has spiritual roots is perhaps a sign that there truly is something dark and sinister in the world around us, that we have unwittingly allowed to take over our house and our lives?
 

Clear the decks

It's time.  I've known it for some time.

It's the season.  And for several weeks I kept saying, "I really need to clear the deck."  

Said it in so many ways.  With so many different words.  And always with such good intentions -- even longing, to do the one needed thing.  Or with wistful resignation.  Or, to be honest, also at times as quiet lament and complaint.

It really is true that the more we talk about doing something, the less likely we are actually to do it.  The mere talking about it somehow satisfies some little powerful part of our brain into feeling we have done something -- enough for now, about it.

But Monday I said only, "I'm going out to put the deck stuff away," and then went and did it.  And the only reason I had to say even that much was so Japhia would know where I was going and what I was doing.

And now it feels so good.  To have and to see and to walk into the space cleared, stripped down, simplified and prepared for the coming dark and cold.  

There will come a time again to pull all the stuff out and set it up anew.  See what still works.  Replace old with new where needed.

But for now it feels so right to have shed the extraneous, and to rediscover the bare bones of what really is and always will be no matter what.  The foundation of what will be again.

And I wonder what other decks might still be waiting to be cleared.



 

Through a glass darkly ...

It looked ugly.

Five or six kids were standing on one side of the street, one of them throwing something at one kid alone on the other side.  The lone kid on the other side was not hit, picked up whatever it was that had been thrown, and defiantly threw it back.  Neither side moved from where they were.

I was sitting inside the coffee shop at my usual table, inside the front window.  I was looking out, watching these high school kids on lunch break as they played out their drama on the street. 

I could see that the lone kid was black.  I wasn't sure about the identify of the five or six on the other side, but mostly they looked white.

I felt shock at the scene.  In Canada.  In Westdale.  In front of me.

I felt dismay to feel confronted by such racial division and violence in a place I consider home.   That's been good to me.

Remembering another incident of racist violence some months ago in a parking lot, I knew the only action I would choose if any seemed necessary or helpful, would be to leave the safety of the coffee shop to stand with the lone kid.  No more.  But no less.  

I waited to see if I should get up, go out, and be ready to stand with him.  I wonder now, was I the only one at that moment watching, holding my breath, and readying to act?

For fully a half minute, then a minute, and maybe a few more the two groups -- rather, the group and the lone kid, stood facing one another across the street.  I couldn't tell if any of them were saying anything.  I saw a few gestures.  But couldn't understand what they were gestures of. 

I grew anxious.

And then I saw the lone kid start to saunter across the street.  Slowly.  Agonizingly slowly.  I looked for any clue in each step-- the slightest sign, as to what this meant.  Or would mean.

Then halfway across the street the group itself became less a group distinct from and against the lone kid.  The kid kept walking towards them, and they seemed suddenly to be several groups of two or three.  The lone kid as he reached the other side blended in with them.  The now six or seven of them milled about.  Were clearly all friends who had been acting out some play-drama among themselves.  And now were happily making their way down the street together.  Wherever they were on their way to.

I relaxed.

And went back to my work.

But not without wondering.
 
About how quickly I interpreted the scene the way I did.  About when and how I learned to do that.  About the sadness I felt at this change in me and in us.  But also about how good it felt to know I was prepared this time to act in some helpful way if necessary.

A loss of innocence.  

But the growth of something else in its place.  

Maybe even better than innocence.

The universe in a grain of sand ... and a brief moment's smile

 
A few evenings ago I was sitting in my car, waiting for a turn in the light. Waiting for the green arrow so I could make my turn left onto Main Street from Cootes Drive.

With the University and McMaster Children’s Hospital on the left there was a lot of pedestrian traffic to watch while I waited.  Mostly university students.

One couple stood out.  A man and woman, just a few years older than the undergrad crowd, but old enough to notice.  Dressed one step less self-consciously than the students around them.  Looking a little weary.  Walking away from the hospital to cross the street in front of me.  The man was carrying a small cooler.  Dark blue with a white handle.

I watched them for a second as they began across Cootes Drive in front of me.  Then my gaze went ahead of them to where they would be in a few seconds -- to the other side.

There, another woman stood out.  Maybe late twenties or thirty.  Also less self-consciously dressed than the students who breezed around and past her.  Also a little weary-looking as she stood on the sidewalk’s edge, waiting for the signal to cross Main, close enough to the curb’s edge not to be in the way of the students.

I wondered about the two of them – the three of them.  The couple and the woman.

As the couple reached the far side of the street – the corner where the woman stood waiting for her own crossing in another direction, in the midst of and set apart from all the students around them, the three turned to one another and shared – offered to each other, a little smile.  Only that.  But definitely and quietly that.

At that point the light changed.   

The woman started out across Main and the young couple, without missing a step, made the little turn a bit to the right to begin the short walk into Ronald McDonald House.

One woman off for a short walk or an errand, maybe before heading back into the hospital to see her child.  A young couple after a day sitting at the bedside of their child, walking back to their temporary refuge together.

So much anxiety, exhaustion, hope and love they must have been carrying – alone and together, like a cross.  And in that quick and simple smile, a welcome grazing gift of the love of God.