There it was.  A cage of bones, its plastic fingers holding onto the cage door.  A single button push and the bones began to shake the cage doors, screaming “Let me out of here!”  Eve looked over at me with eyes wide before turning back to the turbulently trembling cage, as though either seeking my protection or my approval.  You could see that she was afraid, but also wondered if perhaps my not rushing over to her side meant that what she was witnessing was somehow okay.  Except as soon as the rattling cage came to a halt, she swiftly said “Let’s never turn that on again.”

Halloween for our family was always rather taboo.  Our small country church instead hosted Harvest Parties where I dressed up like an angel and ate donuts off a string.  (I still love that game.)  Our home was full of pumpkins and leaves, but very void of awkwardly large spiders and large white sheets blowing in the wind.  Trick or treating too was not an event we participated in, and honestly, I never felt at a loss.  There were other ways to acquire candy and we did so gladly. 

Although for our little family these days, we have a four year old that loves to dress up on any occasion.  Trick or treating and costume parties are by no means necessary.  As a matter of fact I am looking at my little love right now, dressed in a leopard patterned shirt that some would wear for the sake of dressing their girl fashionably, but we held onto it so that Eve can pretend to be a cheetah. Just an ordinary day in our home. 

Still the idea of Halloween is to embrace the spooky, the haunted, the scary, the fearful.  A large plastic cage with rattling bones screaming for its life suddenly becomes normal come the end of October, and we think nothing of it but to humor ourselves with the kitschy or gruesome.  Play up the day how you will, but let’s at least be matter of fact, and so in turn honest with ourselves.

Halloween is the permission of fear.  Attested to by the way in which we nonchalantly decorate our homes and paint our faces.  By that standard then, we have found a way to celebrate fear, and should by no means be surprised when we find that fear is one of our nation’s strongest motivators. 

 

Fear has been used long before the birth of our young nation.  Power, abuse, exploitation all hinge on the common denominator of fear, and have done so since the beginning of time.  Fear is power.  You hold emotions.  You hold opinions.  Or at the very least, you hold influence, whether in the affirmative or not. 

This has been a tumultuous time for our nation, no matter the side of the spectrum which you hold your allegiance, or hold yourself in confusion.  I agonized over my vote this morning, and found myself undecided until only last night.  For some, the choice was obvious.  I know this not as a general statement, but because my journey has afforded me relationships with a whole slew of people that do not fit into a one size fits all way of thinking, and have not batted an eye in regards to their decision.  Even to such an extent that my vote would have those who know me question me one way or the other. 

Nonetheless, I knew that I had to choose my reason for voting and ultimately decide to not cast a vote for one man or another based upon fear.  That would only give credence to what has become an entire basis for our system.

 

Tonight will give way to fear, no matter where the pendulum swings.  Fabricated or sincere, our celebration of fear, manipulation of fear, innocence towards fear or intentionality of fear is what will determine our response.  I claim to be a disciple of Jesus, and he was so remarkably discerning in his repetitious call to live without fear.  Or rather, to surrender fear, because he knew of its hold over us and the way it would be used to hold power and position.  Who better to know the human nature than He who created us? 

So I had to make a choice.  Although there is indeed much to fear in this world, whether downplayed as a holiday or in the hands of political power, to live in fear is to live counter to the freedom of knowing Jesus.  To such an extent that I pity those who don’t know him, for how can fear be combatted otherwise?  Just as I might pity those who claim him, yet live as though fear should sway them.  All the while I can only pray that God would pity me, to such an extent that he would spare me from harm in the ways that would burden my soul too greatly, yet allow just enough that I would always know my desperate need for Him. 

If I am to fear, may I fear more greatly a God that lets us fall prey to what we have created.

Lord have mercy.

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Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.

When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God. 

He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
he remains faithful forever. 

He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free, 

The Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
the Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. 

The Lord reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Psalm 146