Memento Mori

Remember you must die.

I led a book discussion group at my church for a few years and one of our fall sessions was themed: "Teach us to Count our Days." The morbid awareness that we are all gonna die someday gives us the ability to appreciate life today even more, or so some people think. We read a humorous novel about a group of elderly friends going to funeral after funeral called Memento Mori , and a book written by an undertaker called The Undertaking, a bunch of essays about death and burial. A few months ago, I read a book that would have fit perfectly into this theme, called Stiff.

I grew up in a family that did not observe Halloween. Some years we were allowed to hand out candy at our own front door, one year we dressed up our little sister as a witch and used her as a front to get ourselves some candy from the neighbors (she was too little to know she was breaking the rules, and we older two could argue that we were not technically trick-or-treating). One year a sign was posted on our front door that chided any trick-or-treaters that came up our front walk: 'This house does not participate in the pagan observance of Halloween.' My first real full-on Halloween costume was my sophomore year in college, I went to a party as Pippi Longstocking, with Kool-Aid red hair braided and sticking up with coat hanger support.

Last year I gently thumbed my nose at the no-Halloween observance rule of my high school by giving a Reformation Day speech in chapel in monkish costume as Tetzel, that priest infamous for selling indulgences in such a way to get Martin Luther fired up about reforming the Church.

I prefer classy pumpkins and mums and "fall harvest" decor to blow up jack-o-lanterns and mummies for my fall yard look, but this year on Halloween day I poured a bunch of styrofoam human bones on our front park bench. Two years ago I let Steve and his friends set up a gruesome scene of a partially buried person in my front lawn. What is going on with me?

I think Halloween is a holiday a Christian can observe without embarrassment or a sense of double standard. Memento Mori means "reminder of death" and that is what I think Halloween has become. We don't see dead and dying people very often, and yet for a few weeks we are surrounded with skeletons, graveyards, and other sights that remind us of something everyone has some level of dread for: the eventual time of our own death and bodily decay.

As a Christian, I believe that part of the curse that came upon the human race in Eden is that Death has cast a shadow of fear and scariness over life and it is no help at all to pretend otherwise. Halloween is good at reminding us all that we humans are collectively afraid of monsters, zombies, ghosts, demons, vampires, graveyards, spiders, blood-soaked weapons. But I also believe that the good news of Jesus' resurrection allows us to stick our tongue out at death and poke fun of it in a way that Halloween has given us permission to do.

I'm not going to insist that Halloween is little more than a fun day to put kids in a cute puppy costume and take pictures and let them collect candy. One look at the costume selection for kids and adults at Party City is proof enough--Halloween gets to the heart of it all: sex and death. Ninja warrior. Sexy nurse. Vampire bride. Blood. Fake gory body parts.

I'm not going to ignore all the ghoul. I'm going to keep learning what my neighbors are afraid of by appreciating what is set out on their lawn, tacky or gruesome. I'm going to admit that I'm afraid of these things too. I'm going to look Death in the eye, and cringe a bit, because it will keel me over some day. But then I'm also going to stick my tongue out at it, cavort around the neighborhood with my kids in costumes, and show up in church next Easter to keep hearing the good news that takes us beyond Halloween existence: Death is keeled over too, not by the reproductive juices of Hot Sexy Nurse or the brave exploits of Super Hero Ninja Warrior, but by a place that was first revealed to fearful women like me: the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.

Happy Birthday

We chose tonight to celebrate birthdays of Gabe and Karma with our family members. Karma was very excited to get some dress-up items, a Dora the Explorer game, hair-ribbons, stickers and a grocery cart! Gabe received some great books, a chess game and a Transformers movie. We stayed up a little late to watch a movie, it was supposed to be Wizard of Oz, but we had a technical difficulty so watched Annie instead. A fun evening for all.

Trick or Treat

Douwe has no interest in dressing up, ringing doorbells, although he does like candy. Gabe and Karma were very excited to dress up and collect some candy and treats from the neighbors.

Weekend in Idaho

Jeff and Douwe flew out to Idaho for a very short weekend trip to attend Auntie Kim's surprise birthday party. Douwe had fun playing with his older cousins Charlie and Chloe, and their dog Skip. Jeff enjoyed helping prepare food with Bob for the party and for Sunday dinner.

Fall Fun Fair

The Montessori Children's Schoolhouse in Hammond provides a great place for Douwe and Karma to spend their mornings exploring and learning with other kids. They have a fall fundraiser at the Hammond Civic Center with tickets and fair games and a cake walk and our whole family had a nice time. Gabe used all his tickets on the cake walk and won about 3 cakes. Douwe made a few baskets in the little basketball game, so Jeff was tickled. I spent most of the time at the face-painting station because they needed lots of parent helpers, so we were glad that Nana and Papa were there to help escort the toddlers around to the various games.

Bellaboo's

We've taken a few trips already to Bellaboo's. Today Jeff took Douwe and he spent most of his time in the train room, the grocery store and the ball pit. This indoor play center for younger children will be a great place to go when it gets too cold for the outdoor parks.

County Line Orchard

Time for our annual visit to County Line. Much has changed since my first visit here six or seven years ago. They are set up with huge paved parking lots, crowd control signage and four different price levels of admission. THe latest this year is a huge, I mean huge barn for special events up to 1500 people. It has been interesting to see the transition of this farm as visiting the source of apples and pumpkins has increased in popularity as a field trip and family outing ritual for the fall.

I have learned from experience to visit this destination in late afternoon on a weekday so that we are not competing with the field-trip crowds or the weekend chaos.

We skipped the gift shops, the moo-choo train, the kiddie farm and the corn mazes and paid only $1 per person (douwe and Karma free) and instead spent our money on the delicious but highly-priced homegrown and homemade produce.

First stop: after-school snack and bathroom break in the old new barn: Bought a gallon of cold cider on the food store side and brought it back to the concession side and used some dixie cups. Pumpkin and Apple Cider donuts, still warm, and Gabe chose a monstrous carmel apple dipped in chocolate chips.

Then the tractor/hayride to the pumpkin patch. This patch is a little bit sketchy as to its genuine-ness. There was a true pumpkin patch with small and underripe green pumpkins everywhere actually growing, but all the orange ones seemed "planted" throughout the field artificially. There were 8 full bins of pumpkins on skids next to the field, which seemed to be brought in from somewhere else. But we're still in a pumpkin patch and seeing how pumpkins grow, so what the heck. (We bought only one here, another stand down the street sells big ones for $3 and pie sized for $1).

Back on the hayride to the apple orchard. Many of the apple trees were loaded at toddler level with fruit so all ages were able to pick and sample an apple. This is an amazing orchard and the best asset of the farm, with so many varieties all labeled by rows and apples in abundance. Oh, the experience of biting into an apple that just came off a tree and is cold and crisp in the outdoor weather. Karma ate 2 or 3 before we made our way back to the car.

After our stop at the scale, we said hi to the honey bees in the field trip yurts and headed back to the car with no young-uns noticing the other kiddie attractions, they are kindly hidden away behind the barns. Well Gabe was a little disappointed to have to skip that huge corn maze he saw on the way to the pumpkin patch, but Grandpa promised him a corn maze experience another time this month.