Christmas holidays are cloaked in fantasy (Christmas trees, commercialism, Santa, elves), as is Easter (bunnies, eggs, candy) that for followers of Jesus mask their true meaning; but we deal with these in creative ways so children can enjoy them, separating fantasy from truth. So here’s my take on the next upcoming holiday.
Pumpkins and Bedsheets
It’s Halloween again. The night when sheet-covered, costume-wearing children come knocking at your door, with parents or older siblings standing protectively a few steps back in the porch-light shadows. Not wishing to be the early version of a Christmas grinch, you smile with appropriate oohs and aahs at time-honored “trick or treat” demands, and surrender candy pieces, sealed for safety, into the small innocent hands of neighborhood ghosts and goblins, cartoon characters and super heroes. A tradition passed from generation to generation.
Blame it on the Celts
The origin of Halloween can be traced to Samhain, an “ancient pagan festival celebrated over 2,000 years ago by Celtic people in Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man,” according to The World Book Encyclopedia. Samhain was a time in which “Celts believed the dead could walk among the living, and the living could visit with the dead.”
So this is where it began. Halloween costumes, candies, and trick or treat. According to the book Halloween—An American Holiday, An American History, some Celts wore ghost-like costumes so spirits wandering in the neighborhood would think they were one of their own and leave them alone. Sweets were offered the spirits to appease them. In medieval Europe, Catholic clergy adopted these pagan customs, sending their adherents from house to house wearing costumes and requesting small gifts.
When I was young
In high desert central Washington State, my Dad, Mom, sister Nadeen and I lived in the back of a country store at a crossroads called Saint Andrews. It was a short walk up the hill to the one-room country school house serving children from the area’s farms and ranches. By today’s standards it was “primitive.” Then, it was simply home for us.
But the homes were too far apart for “trick or treat.” We had something better.
Not far from where we lived is the Danish Cemetery in which my paternal grandparents, immigrant farmers from Denmark, are laid to rest. And a mile or so south and east from our home at the crossroads is another cemetery just over the brow of a hill. Captain J. S. Andrews, who died 26 May 1891, Douglas County’s second prosecuting attorney, was the first to be buried here. The crossroads where we lived was named after him.
About six acres in size, with a fence around three sides, graves are identified by wooden markers and small stones. One stone marker has been ground into gravel by years of rugged winter weather. Another grave has a private fence around it, with no markings at all.
Where leaders gather.
These cemeteries have very few visitors in recent years, but there was a time when both these sites meant something special to the people who lived here. These were the places people came together to say a prayer and farewell to the leaders. Ranchers, farmers, country people all, the first to settle here. And Captain Andrews.
Not so grand or important as Arlington National Cemetery. Not even close. Yet among those buried here are descendants of friends and relatives I once knew. No witches or goblins or ghosts will be found. Just the remains of common, God-fearing folk, the first to settle here on these lonely, wind-swept plains, carving wheat fields and pasture lands out of thin soil and sagebrush. Making a living, and a life. In their own way, among their own people, leaders all.
My home today is a long way from Saint Andrews. Chances are you’re a long way from where your parents or grandparents are resting, too, awaiting the great Resurrection Morning (1 Corinthians 15). Yet we are not so far so as not to remember these places where, sooner or later, all leaders gather. Kings and queens, pioneers and corporate presidents, unknown soldiers, unnamed farmers. From London’s magnificent Westminster Chapel to all but forgotten windswept graveyards.
While the children play on this holiday, let those of us who know, remember. And when it is time, let’s take the children to the places where our leaders are gathered, and tell the brave stories of those who came to our homelands before us.
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