Rather, it came from an unsuccessful Christian attempt to contain the darkness of pagan harvest festivals like Samhain (pronounced sow-in because Gaelic is weird) that the priests could not stamp out. But the dark side of Halloween did not evolve naturally out of any Christian tradition. The name itself means something like “Holy Evening” (All Hallows Eve), the night before “All Saints Day” on November 1. And what is even weirder, I consider Halloween as a religious holiday just as important as Christmas or Easter, which I also spend a month or so celebrating every year.Ī fair bit of sociological analysis has gone into explaining why people like me love Halloween. Like millions of other generally happy people, I spend a month or so every fall soaked in the darkness of the supernatural. I am not “that guy” who wears black and quotes Kafka and Sartre all the time. I am nice to other people when I don’t even have to be, and I have a healthy optimism for the future of the world.

I love puppies and children and warm summer days. (Please feel free to steal them).Īnd the thing is, I am usually a pretty happy person. I have a wide selection of Halloween ties to wear to work, virtual costumes for all of my social media sites, and two Spotify playlists of dark Halloween music-one classical and one contemporary-that I listen to all day, every day of the month. Every October, both my house and my mind play host to the darkest things I can imagine: ghosts and witches, monsters and demons, and evil things that I would be ashamed to even imagine until very late in September. I am an inveterate and unrepentant lover of Halloween. Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark, p.

Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. The witches have not turned me into a bat.

The monsters have not dragged me out of bed and taken me back to their lair. When, despite all my best efforts, the lights have gone off in my life (literally or figuratively, take your pick), plunging me into the kind of darkness that turns my knees to water, nonetheless, I have not died.

Everyone has a story sermon