A Real Hallows’ Eve

I just have had a conversation with a man whose wife of 65 years recently passed away. As he was in life, he was with her at the end.

He told me that moments after her last breath the atmosphere in the room suddenly changed. The air in the room seemed to take on a tangible presence. While he said words failed to express this change in atmosphere adequately, his attempt at description used the phrase, “a comforting warmth surrounded me.”

Such an experience lies at the very foundation of “All Hallows’ Eve.”  While we call it today, “Halloween” and observe its arrival on the 31^st day of October, it is far more than a calendared occasion. 

While we observe Halloween with many fearsome costumes, lawns decorated with tombstones, emerging skeletons, and all manner of ghosts and goblins seeking candy and saying, “trick or treat” while doing neither, the foundation of All Hallows’ Eve rests in experiences of “a comforting warmth” which has assured and strangely warmed all mortal flesh for generations. 

Hallowed evenings, or mornings, or an unexpected encounter mid-day with a change in the atmosphere that comforts our spirits is, among other things, an assurance that a precious person we have loved and lost to this life finds us! This encounter results in an experience of a comforting warmth with the knowledge that those we have loved are not lost. Such encounters reveal that we are all more than flesh and blood. There is an enduring and wonderful fellowship that is a great and lovely mystery.

While our secularized culture does not encourage the discussion of Halloween’s foundation the hopeful word and experience get out anyway! 

Across time sentient minds in all cultures have experienced encounters of a different kind than what is physically apparent. There are the hallowed moments that lead us not so much to religion but to an experience which overwhelms us with the reality of a changed atmosphere. This spiritual reality cannot be proved to the secular mind. When it is experienced proof does not matter. The moment is only to be enjoyed and savored as one is embraced by comforting warmth that will not let us go. 

Two thousand years ago, one person who was decidedly spiritual and not religious said it this way:

What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead….By believing in God – we know that the world and the stars – in fact , all things – were all made from things that can’t be seen. (Hebrews 11:1,3).

We are living in a moment when what we see taking place before our very eyes in our country is a fearsome reality. Living through these moments when it seems all things once sacred in the land are being abolished or profaned requires our attention and daily effort to resist evil, love mercy, seek justice, and walk humbly with our Creator.

In order to do this, I find it essential to think on and believe in the reality behind All Hallows’ Eve. It is essential to listen closely to those who have had the experience of the atmosphere changing. It is essential to take this as evidence that we are not alone, that hate does not win, that love lasts, that death is not the end, that new and gold-gilded ballrooms do not define a kingdom. 

There are those moments when even – and maybe especially – at the hour of our death, credible voices affirm that the atmosphere changes. We are warmed by such witness to experienced truth.

Have a happy and blessed Halloween. It is no trick. It is not too much to expect and hold out for a spiritual treat.