Glynn Cardy: Rejoice in a day of make-believe

At this time of year the views of reactionary church and radio resonate. Talkback, like the letters to the editor, is predominantly anti-Halloween.

It is "an American custom we don't need", it "teaches kids to get something for nothing", it's "Satan worship", it "scares old ladies".

There is an old lady I know who is far from scared.

At Halloween she elaborately decorates the outside of her house with all sorts of monsters. When you walk up her path things croak at you and fly in your face.

She sits serenely on her veranda in her rocking chair welcoming all and sundry with a huge sack of lollies and the biggest smile you could imagine.

My experience of Halloween in Auckland is dressing up with my kids, walking around the neighbourhood, chatting with people I haven't seen for ages, sharing food and laughs.

In fact, apart from collecting for a charity, it's the only time I've walked and talked with such a variety of neighbours.

Being a 21st-century urban parent I take some precautions.

Our kids don't walk alone. We go, too. They mostly drop in on people we know from school, or church, or other community associations. They are home in bed by 9pm.

Some religious groups get very upset about Halloween. They believe in spooks, Satan, demons, and all of the mean team. They think it is a celebration of evil, dark magic, and horror movies.

These religious groups often organise alternative occasions for their youngsters on October 31.

They don't know their history. Originally the Celtic feast of Samhain, on the eve of the New Year (November 1), was a time to honour the dead and celebrate the renewal of life. Pope Boniface in the 800s gave it a Christian slant by naming it Halloween - the evening of all the holy ones.

The Celts did not have demons and devils in their belief system - they just had fairies, elves, and other friends of Artemis Fowl.

Halloween, like all long traditions, has been modified over the years.

Jack, he of lantern fame, was Irish - though he used a turnip not a pumpkin. Donning masks and entertaining from house to house was English - it was a way for the poor to get some food.

In the 1800s American Halloween was more about community get-togethers than ghosts and pranks - but laughter and fun couldn't be suppressed for long.

Although I don't want to reduce my world to what I rationally know, I live without fear of spirits.

Spooks don't spook me. Things that go bump are usually people or the vagaries of the environment. Like my relationship with spiders and snakes there is at times respect, but they don't scare me or control my life in any way.

The God I believe in - full of life, love and laughter - joins me as I giggle at ghosts and groan at the horror genre. To take such things seriously, to give them a "real" presence, allows them too much power.

Halloween is a day to celebrate the imagination, and to become for an evening something mysterious and strange.

It's a day to rejoice in make-believe. It's a day to thumb our noses at the real world and go skipping off with winged horses and fairy folk. There is a reality to fiction and a value in fantasy that is wonderful and God-given.

I believe, too, in laughter. There is magic in laughing together as parents and children, as neighbours and strangers. It is refreshing, community-building, and soul-restoring.

There is also a power in laughter to dispel the potency of what we might secretly fear - like death and the unknown. When we laugh, God laughs too.

* Glynn Cardy is Vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City, Auckland.