Remember the Dead

[Recycled from 09:54, 31 October 2004, and from 31 October 2005, and 2006]

This evening, we will be giving out what we usually give on Halloween: a plastic bag containing a comic book, a small toy, a piece or two of candy, and this card:

Remember the Dead

This is the night when the ancestors return to receive the hospitality of the living.

If we show them proper courtesy, with gifts and food, we will have their blessing through the coming year. As long as we honor the dead, they remain with us. Of coruse, if we fail to welcome them with proper courtesy, things may not go so well . . . especially tonight.

It is all too easy to ignore death and pretend it doesn't happen. But hiding from our fear will only make it greater. Better to choose a time to face our mortality -- and defy it.

So to memorialize the departed, and to confront our own fear of death, throw wide your doors tonight, and heed well the words of the evening's honored visitors:

"Trick or Treat!"

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Have a mini-Snickers, Grandpa."\\