Bumpy Pumpkins and Creative Theologies

In my last post I wrote about my plan to put some of the decorated pumpkins from the St. Aidan’s Oktoberfest as decorations around the altar this past Sunday. got nothing but positive comments from the congregation. Our wild bumpy pumpkin and the smaller decorated varieties got their fifteen minutes of fame and are now back at home on our porch where they belong.

But the experience led me to thinking about the many ways in which secular and sacred intersect. The more I think about it, the less I think anything can be truly secular. But Halloween is an interesting test.
I love this holiday, always have. My friends and I trick-or-treated until people started giving us dirty looks. And now I love that having kids legitimates my dressing up and going door-to-door again on Halloween. I think pretending and wearing costumes is good and healthy for kids’ imaginations, plus trick-or-treating is one of the rare opportunities to actually connect in person with our neighbors. But I’m never quite sure how to explain some of it to my kids. Scary ghosts, vampires, skeletons – what exactly is so fun about all of this stuff?

I was talking to another mother and she helped me out a bit, at least as far as pumpkins go. She told me that when she carves pumpkins with her kids, she uses the pumpkins as an illustration of how we are made “new creations” by our faith in Jesus Christ. Just as we reach into those pumpkins and clear out the seeds and the goop, God clears away our sins and fears and offers us a clean start. And just as those pumpkins radiate the warm glow of the candles inside, the light of Christ flows into our hearts and shines through us. I can use that.