Hallows

a devotional for autumn

Thank you for joining us!

Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:

On our discussion last week about mystery vs clarity, Kevin LaTorre shared:

I think clarity is more of a gift than a guarantee. It's always welcome and moving when we find it, but we rarely find it as often or as quickly as we'd like.

If anything, mystery is more of a guarantee. And I'd include mysteries beyond the Christian concept of the divine mystery: the existentialist's mystery of existing without a truly ordered reality, the postmodernist's mysterious feeling that everything might well be random, and the smaller mysteries of knowing another person or place. These mysteries are more commonplace than deep clarity, and they vary by how hopeful they make (or don't make) us.

This was so insightful, Kevin! Thank you for sharing! Kevin writes a newsletter called A Stylist Submits where he explores the intersection between faith and aesthetics. He also interviewed yours truly last month, which you can read here!

If you want a chance to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!

Now, on with this week’s devotional…

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A Liturgy for All Hallows’ Eve

today we celebrate
with candy and costume.

tonight we vigil
with cross and candle. 

we wisely recognize that there is evil in this world
and we wisely remember
that our Creator God has overcome it. 

we set a place at the table for our ghosts
our ancestors
our beloved lost
the martyrs
and our griefs, both public and private. 

we recognize them, we let them in, 
we sit them down, we hold them for a while,
and then we let them go to be healed. 

tonight
we drive away the darkness
with remembering
that there is truly nothing to fear.

Today is Hallowe’en. For some, that will mean dressing up in costumes and trooping around the neighborhood, asking for candy. For some, that will mean parties. For others, it will mean staying indoors, watching scary movies, or just listening for the doorbell with a bowl full of sweets at the ready.

There will be some for whom this will be just another day. They, too, are blessed.

Having seen this day’s many sides myself, and having spent long years hating it, I know how tricky our feelings can be about it. How do we allow for the spirit of mischief without falling prey to darker forces? How do we contemplate death without letting it take us over, consume our thoughts? How do we balance darkness and light so deftly that we sink deeper into sacred mystery, and not trip into clouded judgment?

These are good questions. Not all of them have clear answers.

I can only tell you what this day will mean to me. It will mean the fragrance of soul cakes and barmbrack filling the air as they bake. It will mean rosemary for remembrance and candles flickering in the windows. It will include saying goodbye to the apple tree and leaving the remaining fruit for glowing eyes and tiny paws in the autumn dark. There may be photos of dear ones passed on, and prayers of gratitude said for them.

And when it is over, and the darkness of the season falls upon us like a curtain, the flickering light of the candle in the window will prefigure the light of Advent, not far away now. The light that is unquenchable. The light of an eternal morning, as yet far but drawing nearer.

Whatever your feelings are about Hallowe’en (and believe me, I know that feelings can be complicated, today), my prayer is that you would see that light in unexpected places, this week, and that it would fill you with a hope that death and darkness can never overcome.

May a place at the table be set
for an earnest conversation with our ghosts.
May the glow of the lights in the autumn darkness
guide us closer to the grace-filled heart of our God.
May the colors of the season remind us
how multi-hued is the love of our Savior.
May the Creator-God bless us and keep us
on this vigil of haws, hallows, harvest, and holiness. 

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