Halloween!

Halloween is here! The night where people get to look scary things in the eye and laugh! It is a night for fun, for dressing up and trick-or-treating, for dabbling on the dark side. And for candy. Lots of candy.


I had a friend who loved Halloween so very much because of the candy. It was her favourite holiday because there were no family obligations, she could be anyone she wanted AND have a bag of candy to eat from for weeks. When her parents told she was too old for trick-or-treating, she cried.


But to me, Halloween is all about embracing fear. We go out into the dark night in disguise. We are not fooling anyone. The ghouls and goblins and zombies are still there. But for this one night we are fearless. The Halloweens of my youth were filled with laughter and chocolate and silly (most often homemade) costumes, but the idea that we could tromp about in groups and ask strangers for candy was the opposite of all that "stranger-danger", never take candy from strangers stuff we had been force-fed all of our young lives.
Kids today are sheltered from the trick-or-treating my generation enjoyed. They go to Harvest Festivals and Fall Carnivals so that there are no drugs or razor blades in their candy. Even the "scary" rooms or rides at these carnivals are funnier than scary. When kids are allowed to trick-or-treat, it is usually only in a sheltered neighborhood, or kids are driven across town to show Grammy and Grampa the costumes. It is an end of an era. Some mean old ghouls spoiled the fun for this generation.

Still, it is a fun holiday and should be celebrated as the opportunity it is where children can face down the dark night in their new identities. All the while filling their mouths with sugar, chocolate, and laughter.

                                                      HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

Helpless

   
"I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me. -CS Lewis

Hurricane Sandy is hammering the East Coast with strong winds and snow and flooding, causing power outages and death. It is a Tuesday morning and my two children are in Maine and New York City. I feel helpless in North Carolina-unable to do my best to keep them safe. Halloween is tomorrow and the new President of the United States will be chosen one week from today.I had a job interview today that didn't feel promising and all of this together makes me feel helpless. It is a strange way to end a month and to begin a new adventure.  

Discovery

There is clearing in the woods across the street from our house. Someone bought a narrow strip of land that had been on the market for a while and have begun cutting down trees so they can build a house. So we went for a walk to check out the progress and to introduce ourselves to the new neighbors.

    There was a glint of something shiny and we kept walking because the new neighbors weren't there. Amazingly, there is a lovely little body of water bigger than a small pond but smaller than a lake-only yards from our front door.

In all the time that we have lived in our house, we never knew it was there! It was quiet except for the birdsong and frog peeping, and lush with color!

 

“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries". A.A. Milne

So we went to tell our friends about our wonderful discovery. And this is their reply:

"Oh, that old beaver bog? What you never knew that was there? Why, it has been there for ages!"