My lovely wife shared a meme on her Facebook page a few days ago. It didn’t include an interesting or engaging picture. It was just a black screen with white text that read, “Halloween: a day when we get it right. Strangers come to us beautiful, ugly, odd or scary, and we accept them without question, compliment them, treat them kindly, and give them good things. Why don’t we live like that?” Both the sentiment and the question are worthy of reflection and consideration.
Just hours after she made her post, my wife and I headed out to our driveway to distribute candy to the host of trick-or-treaters who would soon saturate our neighborhood. Just like clockwork, at the first stroke of 6:00pm, the first costumed folk made their way up our driveway with hopeful expectation that we would offer treats and not tricks.
We are “the light of the world” and must “let [our] our light shine before others that they may see [our] good deeds and glorify [our] Father in heaven (Matt. 5:14-16).” Extending basic graces is literally the least we should do.
Our favorite part of trick-or-treating is seeing the costumes people wear. Michael Jackson was particularly popular this year. So too was a female character with braided purple hair, which Google tells me is Rumi from KPop Demon Hunters. We saw three sets of Alvin and the Chipmunks, none of whom were willing to sing The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late); I asked. We also saw numerous Minions, a few Batmen (I think that’s the proper plural) and Spider-People (there were male and female versions), to name a few. We also welcomed a number of ghastly and ghoulish characters, whom I won’t describe. Suffice to say, there were some costumes we enjoyed and appreciated and others that we did not. We even had a few that didn’t bother dressing up at all. When I asked what they were dressed up as, my kindly bride rescued them by announcing they were clearly Seymour Middle School students (what they really were was lazy).
We experienced the truth of the meme’s sentiment as the parade of characters visited our home. There were no qualifications at Casa de Myers. It didn’t matter how a person was dressed. If they came to our house, we gave them candy. It didn’t matter if we felt they were deserving. If they came to our house, we gave them candy. It didn’t matter if they were young or old. If they came to our house, we gave them candy. As the meme noted, “Strangers come to us beautiful, ugly, odd or scary, and we accept them without question, compliment them, treat them kindly, and give them good things…” It truly was a beautiful display of grace as people all over our community loved neighbor as self.
It’s not an unreasonable ask, but if our experience with trick-or-treaters is any indication, it could make a world of difference.
We must then consider the question: “Why don’t we live like that?” More than a few reasons may come to mind. We know that the darkness reflected in some of the costumes is but a pale shadow of the evil that exists in our world. But, the existence of evil in the world and the intentions of others are not valid excuses for us to refuse to extend basic graces. In fact, if we want to drive out the darkness in our world, hiding away and withholding the light Christ commanded us to shine is counter-intuitive. We are “the light of the world” and must “let [our] our light shine before others that they may see [our] good deeds and glorify [our] Father in heaven (Matt. 5:14-16).” Extending basic graces is literally the least we should do. There is no valid reason not to.
No one is asking us to invite our neighbors to move into our homes, let them babysit our children, or give them access to the bank accounts. The meme simply being challenges us to attempt to extend small graces and to display a measure of kindness in our daily dealings with others. It’s not an unreasonable ask, but if our experience with trick-or-treaters is any indication, it could make a world of difference. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say it would make a different world.
