Talk of booster shots and Halloween fun

[paul-met-debbie]

Sorry to hear this,  Jenny, indeed a bit unexpected to see you react so “positively” to the booster shot. Well, it’s a clear sign of your immune system responding very well and recognizing the covid proteins.

About Halloween: we talked about this earlier here and I remember saying that for us, in the Netherlands, Halloween was not a tradition.

It seems that I have to correct myself on this because recently I read in the news that Halloween has become quite a thing in our little country as well. About half of the Dutch seem to actively engage in some kind of Halloween festivity, to our surprise. And not only on the 31st of October but in the weeks around that as well. Personally, we are not involved in this, perhaps in our (basically catholic) county in the south they still hold on to the more original Dutch tradition of “Allerheiligen” (1st November) and “Allerzielen” (2nd November) where the holy souls and spirits of those departed are commemorated.

At home I didn’t give much attention to this, not being brought up in any religious direction, but my mother always paid an extra visit to the grave of my brother, to make sure it was clean and decorated with some fresh flowers. Nowadays my younger sister still faithfully performs this ritual to my delight.

From our youth we also remember a sort of “trick-or-treat” tradition where the little children visited the neighboring houses at dusk, carrying hand-crafted lanterns, to ask for sweets in return for a song, but this was on “St. Maarten”  (11th November), named after the French catholic bishop Martin of Tours (316-397), originally marking the start of a 6 weeks period of Advent leading to Christmas. Later the time of Advent was reduced to 4 week

My sister and I can still burst out in hysterical laughter when we remember the dismissive reaction of one of our neighbors (who was probably protestant) when the group of children called at their house and started singing. And every year again of course instead of skipping the house, we tried again just to annoy her and hear her shout that we should clear out and never come back. Clearly we, as pagans, were not quite getting the right spirit that underlain this tradition either. But it is a sweet memory. I am sure she rests in wholeness now, and fittingly I remember her fondly today thanks to your post.

[tim-blowfield]

Sad to hear of the uncharitable reaction of that neighbour, Protestant or not. She obviously had little understanding of Jesus’ teaching such as love your neighbour/love your enemies. Admittedly much of what goes on on Halloween is a distortion of All Hallows Eve, a day set aside by many Christians to remember those who have died. It demonstrates how little most people understand of His teaching and work. Just because one is ‘religious’ or even a priest/minister is no guarantee – John Wesley was a priest long before he came to understand the gospel.