Halloween column

I haven’t lived in Alton that long, but it does not take long to find our fascination with the otherworldly. At this time of year, so many houses are lavishly and ghoulishly decorated, and all sorts of tours are offered for a taste of some of our many haunted sites.I have met a number of people who tell tales of encounters with the ghostly. Unhappy that Scripture gives but the barest of images for heaven, a small cottage industry treats us to a panoply of near death experience books that give us tours of heaven. I do not doubt that some of the reports are valid to the authors, but I do prefer the open-ended visions of the Bible to a series of well-defined, culturally obvious grand tours of these books. How different are they really from the victorian projections of books such as the Gates Ajar that offered a pleasing familiarity to families who had loved ones lost in the slaughter of the Civil War? I have little patience with those who fear halloween as it may confuse young people. It’s a tle to help us face the reality of death in a cute way. Like all carnival times, it exposes the structures that undergird our familiar world and even holds them up to ridiucle. Good.Nor do I have much patience with the health nannies who scream about indulgence in candy one night a year. I do admire groups that add some additional social meaning such as the old Trick or Treat for UNICEF program. Halloween precedes All Saints Day that recalls the folks in heaven and All Souls Day, where folks were thought to be in the cleansing of purgatory before being among the saints in heaven. So, it is no surprise that it picked up elements from different cultures about the abode of the dead, but with a more sinister shape. Death stalks us all, so Halloween help us to face our fears about death but making fun of the situation of mortality. Rarely do we go through life open, for that makes us vulnerable. We spend a lot of time building up defenses, presenting different personas, different masks to wear for different social situations. Halloween masks invite us to play a different role. for some, we let a different aspect of our personality shine through, Sometimes we project our aspirations, so we may parade around as superheroes. We may honor someone, such as the profusion of political or celebrity masks.Sometimes we face our fears by donning a mask. again, think political masks and the popularity of the Nixon mask. Our culture seems to be dealing with a new round of fascination with the line between life and death. Our youngest daughter took her introduction to rhetoric class through the prism of zombies in the arts. They are walking dead, the name of a popular TV program. The Twilight saga continues on screen soon. I just read a piece by Zaleski in a recent Christian Century where folks are talking about trying to encode our mental connections on to a computer to try to enjoy a sort 6fo virtual immortality. I wonder if death explorations are so popular as death is one of the last frontiers that technology has yet to peer behind. I also wonder if we do not feel as if we are living life to its fullest, so we try to capture a sense of its preciousness by focusing on those who walk the line between life and death. if life does not seem purposeful, then would not immortality bring with it the terror of extended ennui? Halloween is fun; that adds spice to life. That is good enough for me.