Halloween. I don’t like it. But equally I don’t actually mind if you like it, even though I think you shouldn’t. It’s a strange position to take, I know, but it’s where I’ve landed.
I’m pretty sure I’ve written before about how the fun is a thin mask for some deeply sinister goings on. People guffaw when Christians say that, but it is there, kind of hardwired into the Bible: there’s a physical realm, where pumpkins are vegetables and masks are made of cheap plastic. Then, overlapping it, there’s a spiritual reality, where evil spirits torment people, and witches gather to perform spells. As Christians, we believe that the overlap is wafer-thin, and on nights like this, getting involved is like playing with a tiger cub - at any moment the spiritual reality of that world can come flooding into this; at any moment, the cute animal could bare its teeth.
We drove back to the hotel via a partial roadblock of blue flashing lights. Police cars and fire engines were gathered by the Co-Op, a ring of officers huddled in the glow of its plasma-lit interior. Something had gone down there tonight - my guess: kids throwing fireworks into the shop. That’s happened before on this particular night. Mischief spilled over into something very dangerous, perhaps without them really understanding why. I do wonder if that’s a small picture of what I mean.
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