Richard Mallory

All Hallows Eve
by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Halloween seems scarier this year,
maybe because everything is scary,
monsters let loose, 
masked people at the door
(not asking for candy),
people costumed, not what they appear,
women made pretty little things or witches.
The planet more and more
like a boiling cauldron.
A ruined House. A haunting.
A dusk of fear, a pall of dread.
Something actually bad is afoot.
Death walks the streets 
all casual like it owns the place.
But all dressed up and happy, see,
so nobody really has to freak.

That’s what makes it scary, the lie. 

But listen: it’s not the end, it’s only the Eve.
On the day after, come all the saints,
the kind and calm and steady, 
the hopeful and courageous,
who have faced these monsters before,
who have “come through the great tribulation”
and know how to do this.
And we ourselves, having gotten 
the heebie-jeebies out of our system,
join them in the long, hard march 
right smack dab through the nightmare
to something peaceful and beautiful.

Dear Followers and Seekers of Christ,

The poem ends with proclamation of resurrection. Prior to resurrection is the inevitable “scary time” when need of support and bonding with others is necessary. I heard this week of someone’s separation of people into two categories—those who are grieving and know it and those who are grieving and don’t know it.

Grieving is not a popular word. Our culture thinks little of it. This holy and sacred experience of grieving gets sidelined, minimized, and pushed to the margins. Just listen to the way reporters write and speak about tragedy. In describing one Trinidadian’s response to the ruination of her home from Hurricane Melissa, the journalist spoke of her “still grieving.” The word “still” could be accurate if she was “still grieving” five years from now. The PBS news team that chose “still” is encouraging the minimization of grieving. She was not “still grieving.” She was grieving.

Grieving is about loss. Loss is woven into existence. Honoring one’s grief permits movement through it so as to reach the “other side.”

Today’s Gospel is Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. In Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, the first line as translated by Peterson in The Message reads,

“You’re blessed  when you’ve lost it all.
God’s kingdom is there for the finding.”

That woman in Trinidad doesn’t need anyone quoting this verse “at her” in her present condition. She needs comfort, empathy, and outreach in the midst of stupefying  horror and disorientation. How can anyone know that God’s kingdom is also present in the midst of catastrophe?

Nonetheless, it is there for “the finding,” eventually, and after time that has had healing in it. After going through lamentation and writing a few psalms that rage at God and Life itself, then, just maybe, Resurrection.

I know that is true from my own life. When my wife died the day before her 50th birthday, I couldn’t have imagined that life would continue and even open up into new dimensions of glory, goodness, discovery, and a deeper experience of Life itself. With help from many others, I survived and then thrived. Grace upon grace.

There is much to grieve for at this time. No one can do grief work alone to get to the other side. That’s where healthy and life-giving community comes in and that is what church is at its best.

—Richard