All Saints... fear to faith

To be Hallowed is to be made holy, to become saintly. Our modern holidays are far removed from the battles between Pagan Religions and Christianity to rule the calander. It is really not surprising, however, that Halloween is well known while the fact that it is “all hallows eve” or the “eve of the feast of all saints” is rather forgotten. We are stuck on our fears and therefore we cannot move beyond the witching hour into All Saints Day.

Halloween is the day when we live out, even put on costumes and embody, our fears. All the television stations play Horror Movie Marathons all day long. It’s the night when it is perfectly acceptable to curl up with a bit of Poe or Lovecraft and be frightened by tentacled horrors and pithy ravens. It calls to mind the devilish rendition of Bach in Disney’s fantasia with the ghost and demons frolicking throughout the town wreaking havoc but then dawn comes and they melt away into the night. What if the dawn did not come, what if we were stuck in some point right before dawn?

How many of us are stuck at that point of being afraid, of allowing the ghost and demons to frolic as they will and thus we do not seek out the dawn. How often are we children content to play in the mud of the gutter and refusing a trip to the seashore, just because we are afraid of what that might mean? How often do we stay with our fears, stay with All Hallows Eve and do not enter into All Saints Day?

The past months have beset us with many pitfalls. Terrorist attacks continue around the world, natural disasters follow one after another, even the calmest of news broadcasters cannot help but bring up the idea of Apocalypse. People have been left numb, too afraid to act. As a nation, as a people, we are beginning to let fear rule our lives from our governmental policies to our day-to-day existence… this is a wretched trend that seems to be growing not weakening.

In the midst of this I am reminded of one of Virginia Woolf’s diary entries about the air raids on London during the Blitz “We count now on an air raid about 8.30. Anyhow, whether or not, we hear the sinister sawing noise about then, which loudens and fades; then a pause; then another comes. ‘They’re at it again,’ we say as we sit, I doing my work, L. making cigarettes. Now and then there’s a thud. The windows shake. So we know London is raided again.” I wonder at what point we lost that ability to go on in the face of fear. To not let fear override who and what we are.

Since the Berlin Wall came down Americans did not have much to fear. In the nineties we seemed to coast, but now in this new millennium we find ourselves with war, terrorism, and natural disaster in our face. The ever-present fears caused by our human condition are now in our face. The world has not changed, we have simply become more aware of its harshness. We no longer have a warm blanket covering our eyes, fear surrounds us, newspapers evoke it, politicians use it, and we are stalled by it.

This is odd, however. I remember long talks in Labrador about the failing economy, based on declining fisher stocks. . A series of bad winds in winter can mean a month without mail, without supplies. Electricity is dependant upon diesel generators, what we use for back up. The gravel roads, the somewhat reliable form of transport, went from ice slicks, to potted with holes, to covered in small rocks that might as well be marbles… all of which cause accidents even with the safest of driving. Gales can come upon the sea wrecking boats and maiming and killing their crews. There were days in winter where the snow came down so hard that there was nothing but white to be seen and with winds blowing the cold air and snow so swiftly that it could immediately scar your face and quickly kill you. As spring approached Polar Bears would wander into towns and children and pets were quickly brought in side as everything stopped until the bears could be chased from town. There are no hospitals, only nurse’s stations with minimal healthcare and no quick access to other facilities. Day to day existence there involves a level of risk we in the suburbs of Boston find hard to even contemplate.

If fear were to rule there decision making they would probably leave. Yet they stay to enjoy a night under the Aurora Borealis. To traipse over hills to rarely seen valleys covered in luscious wild berries. To live in a place where a four year old can walk down the block to pick up cold medicine for her grandmother on credit in complete safety, where every Sunday involves a proper dinner after church, and where there is always time for a cup of tea. Where a long night of fiddles, accordions, guitars, and harmonicas playing old tunes we all know but never hear is only a few days past or a few away.

There are risks to living in Labrador, risk that people need to be wary of, but the people who live there take those risks in order to enjoy life in a way beautiful and unique. Here outside of Boston we have our own set of risk, risk we need to be aware and wary of, but we cannot let fear of those risks stop us from enjoying life. Stop us from doing our work and “making cigarettes”, though I hope your hobbies do not involve such risk to your lungs…

How does this not being ruled by our fears enter into being hallowed, being made holy? So far I have spoken in general, I have spoken of cultures and communal fears. The first step in being hallowed is realizing what we fear. Let me suggest some things people fear. People fear being impoverished, financially, emotionally, in any way we fear poverty. We fear loss, we fear loosing those people and things that are dear to us. We fear being gentle and soft and having the world crush us with its brutality. We fear acknowledging that the world around us on every level is fallen and in need of aide. We fear the amount of energy it takes to be truly ourselves. We fear the commitment it takes to reconcile ourselves with those around us. We fear becoming outcasts in our communities.

Maybe you do not fear all of these things, but I am sure that somewhere in that list there is something you fear. What is odd is that these things, things we fear, are the very characteristics of those Christ calls blessed.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”… Luke’s rendition says simply “the poor”… regardless Christ is talking about recognizing our impoverishment… you might have a steady income a good house but each of us have ways in which we are poor… inside each of us there are places where we are impoverished. Recognizing our impoverishment means overcoming our fear of it… If we do this Christ names us blessed and promises the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn”… we fear loss, we fear recognizing our loss, of dealing with those places inside of us wear we are hurt and aching, Christ blesses those willing to enter into the dark and lonely places of existence… He promises them comfort.

“Blessed are the meek”… we fear being gentle, meek, and mild… who wants to be the victim of bullies, in our dog eat dog world its everyone for themselves and the top dog wins, meet any force with and greater force to vanquish it… yet Christ tells us it is the meek, the gentle soul who will inherit the earth… I for one like the idea of a world owned by grandmothers with warm cookies and artists like Merwin, Woolfe, and Da Vinchi over ours ruled by Oil Syndicates and Armies with Guns.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”… We want to block out how the world is fallen, not only in the since of war, natural disaster, and the like, but also in the sense of our day-to-day life. We fear realizing how distant we are from righteousness, we want to think we are already there, but Christ blesses those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, those who realize it is something they must seek, to those he promises fulfillment.

“Blessed are the Merciful”… we want to judge; we want to think we understand how the world works and who is right and who is wrong. We want to think there is a black and a white and the divide between them is large and easily discernable and that we can lay down the law. Christ blesses those who plunge into the scary gray and continually show mercy… he promises to give mercy to the merciful… let us hope he does the same to those who are afraid to be merciful…

“Blessed are the Pure in Heart”… I find it scary to think what I would be if I were pure in heart, if I were truly acting fully within God’s will, the thought of being blessed by seeing the face of god is frightening for me as well. The idea of being an instrument of God is for me a scary responsibility… it is at this point that I continue to fear yet continue to move forward.

“Blessed are the Peacemakers”… The amount of commitment it takes to become a bringer of peace is frightening. It is daunting and scary and something that I really would rather not deal with. It is only, however, when we grapple with this commitment to bring peace to those around us and to be at peace with those around us that we are blessed with the name “children of god”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, who are reviled and persecuted falsely on the account of Christ”… none of us want to be outcasts… we do not want to be thrown out of our community… yet if we look at those things we were just talking about, the virtues Christ calls blessed we will be acting against the culture in which we live. To be a Christian culture is a counter culture. If we take up the gospel fully we should be prepared to be ostracized. We are blessed then with the community of heaven, which stretches through all time.

To be hallowed, to be holy, to become saintly is a matter of moving from fear into faith. It is a matter of allowing dawn to turn into day. It is to place aside the earthly things to which we cling and exchange them for things heavenly. On this day when we celebrate All Saints I ask you move your life out of Halloween, out of the land of demons and ghost, that you move past the dark witching hour of your fears and into faith, that you stop living in the eve of hallowed and enter into being hallowed. The actions to begin this are simple; they are the great mystery the liturgy brings us to every Sunday. Confess your faith, bring your worries and fears to God in prayer, lament your sins, and come to the altar to be hallowed by the heavenly feast.