Becoming Halloween

I loved Halloween when I was a kid. Odd, really, since my mother hated – and still does – the whole affair. I looked forward to the huge Halloween party my church held. My memory of the huge, expansive multi-purpose room was filled with games, a cake walk giving away whole cakes, and the coveted prizes for the costume competition. Each year I dressed up to win. Every year I lost.

In fifth grade, having read the book “Plain Girl” about an Amish girl, I decided to go as her. I made the costume myself, my mother helping me with the apron and bonnet. I was transformed as I gazed at myself in the mirror. I felt like I had become her.

The next year mom said “no more sewing”, so a seamstress friend stepped up to help. I was a can-can girl and the costume was all that. I could have stepped onto the set of Moulin Rouge and fit right in.  I felt pretty, exotic, flamboyant and sassy! 

For as long as the Halloween party was held, I costumed myself up to become another person, character or entity.  I never did win. Not once. It wasn’t until I was older and those parties had long since gone by the wayside that I learned why: dad was the pastor, I was one of his kids, it would look bad if I won.  

My dad died a little more than a year ago, and all that is involved in grief is on-going. All Hallow’s Eve, Dia De los Muertos, Day of Souls and Saints are exactly the right time of year to think about my dad. These rituals give us the opportunity to ritually honor those who are no longer physically with us. They invite us to honor, remember, celebrate and think about our dead.

I was considering building an altar for my dad and wondered what I would put on it. Over the last decade of his life he and I (and my mom and my husband) moved together on a profound journey. We transitioned from espousing Christianity and living deeply embedded in the church as pastors, to independent thinkers who locate ourselves somewhere between agnostic and atheist. We remain engaged in the story of Jesus and his radical choices toward justice, equality and the value of women. Ritual and meaning making through word, meditation and ceremony remain central and important. We are not your typical anything… not freethinkers, humanists, agnostics, atheists, pagans or secularists. We are simply becoming.

I still enjoy Halloween. I love to watch my kids find joy in putting on another persona, adorning themselves with mustaches and make-up, having the chance to be “Katniss”, a witch, goblin, warrior or Viking for a day. There is a grace and freedom to the act of masking our faces and bodies with a different look, energy, personality and letting loose the growls, purrs, screams and roars of a new being. Perhaps once-a-year Halloween gives us the opportunity to take the risk of becoming something new without having to actually do it full time.  

The practice of “becoming new” once-a-year, and the imagination and preparation to do so, has served me well.  The disappointment of a young girl at not winning the competition has diminished along with the roles in and expectations of the church. Maybe it was Halloween and the freedom of trying on a new being for a night that readied me to truly, honestly and powerfully become a new person in my own skin.

If you could try out a new idea, what would it be? What question is burning in your mind and heart that has seemed too scary to ask? Is there a personality trait you have always longed to express? Is there a passion left untouched, a desire lying dormant?

Stephen Covey used to ask people to “begin with the end in mind”. “Imagine your own funeral,” he would say, “and the speeches given and what you hope they will say.”  Use this to guide your choices throughout your life – your decision of becoming.

On my dads altar I will place an excellent bottle of red wine, luscious dark chocolate, all that is music and books: lots and lots of books. I will fashion the altar to resemble a dinner table, around which people will gather to eat good food, drink good wine and debate, discuss, talk, wonder, laugh and cry. There will be candles, linen napkins and open minds.

What would you put on your Dia de los Muertos altar? What would you want others to recite about the “story of you”?

This year, dress up for Halloween! Be that something new, something dangerous, risky or previously-off-limits idea, persona or image! Practice becoming; thinking new, wondering differently and trying on another perspective.