Magpie and Muttonfly

I’ve always held a certain soft spot for Halloween.   You heard me.  Halloween … as in H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N!   Growing up, we would dress up in homemade costumes before heading to grama’s for chili and cornbread.  We’d trick-or-treat in her neighborhood before visiting my other grama.  My grandparents always made special goody bags for us grandkids; neighbors always looked forward to our visits, tisking and tasking at how we’d grown from year-to-year.

It was tradition.

And here’s the thing:  it was a tradition for believers and non-believers alike.   My grandparents may have thought dancing was of the devil, but by george they had chocolate for trick-or-treaters.  Every year.  Good chocolate – even if it meant my grama running to the store three times to replace the candy my grandpa ate.      

Christians today make such a fuss over Halloween – refusing even, to call it such.  Now I realize, evil things do transpire.  But shouldn’t that be all the more reason to be goodness and light?  I don’t recall Jesus … Peter … Paul ever saying, “Run for the hills!  There’s evil afoot!”  Quite the opposite, actually.  Paul called Ephesus – a den of iniquity if ever there was one – a “wide door of opportunity.” 

I think sometimes today we take such pains to avoid evil, that we avoid opportunity as well.  Being the salt of the earth is not always being involved in constructed ministry.  It’s certainly not holing ourselves up.  More often than not, being salt is entwined in the little things, when no one but God is looking.  I dare say, sometimes being salt is a welcome light, a warm smile, and the best chocolate in the neighborhood…