Samhain Procession
There was an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail newspaper this weekend about Halloween by the Irish ambassador to Canada, Eamonn McKee. He reflects on the Druidic festival of Samhain, which became the Christian All Hallows Eve. He rightly points out that we don't really know how the ancient Celts would have celebrated, although story-telling and fires could well have been part of it all. McKee speaks of Samhain and its successor, Halloween, being liminal moments marking the passage of seasons and time. While he may be overly critical of Christianity in changing the sense of Samhain, I agree that Halloween and Christmas and Easter are all tied to the movements of the seasons:Christmas tagged along on the Winter Solstice and Easter on the Spring Equinox. McKay puts it poetically:
Like Christmas and Easter, Halloween’s annual celebration links us to the rhythms of the Earth as it spins through space, leaning into the sun in summer and into the void in winter. We should perhaps pay more attention to this dimension of our annual festivities. The timing of these festivals reminds us that we are part of nature and subject to its spinning rhythms. They remind us that we are nature’s guests here. Thinking we are nature’s masters is the kind of spin that gets you into trouble.
Why wouldn't we readily acknowledge that our forebears in faith made these connections? I am convinced that in a time when we have disconnected ourselves from the Earth, to our peril, Christians should be intentional about re-establishing our place alongside God's creatures in their great variety and with the rhythms to which he refers. Why don't we include opportunities to worship outdoors during our "high and holy days" to complement what we do indoors? Sure, the number of participants might be smaller for those worship services, but who cares! By doing so we could honour the Creator whose choice was to live among us in the earthy Jesus?
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