Sound of Surviving Blog

Halloween is this weekend. It’s the one day where you get to be whatever you want to be. While Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, I saw a quote the other day that shifted my perspective a little: “Halloween is a day when we get it right. Strangers come to us, beautiful, ugly, odd, or scary, and we accept them all without question, compliment them, treat them kindly, and give them good things. Why don’t we live like that?”- Steve Garnass-Holmes

And I started thinking, “Why don’t we live like that?” In our day-to-day lives, we tend not to think positively of those around us who are different or perceived as “scary”; we pull our children away so they don’t stare at or ask questions of those people in the supermarket aisle. I can’t imagine if just because of how I looked, people were afraid to let their child go near me.

On Halloween, when a child or a person comes to our doors dressed up as a terrifying monster or a bedazzled princess, we don’t turn them away, because they look frightening or different. We tell them they look wonderful, and we ask them what they are. We give them candy or treats, and we wish them well.  

Why don’t we do that every day? Why do we instead choose to isolate those who are different from us, and shun our loved ones from them? Halloween is not a Christian holiday in any way, and I am in no way trying to make it one, but it does have one Biblical component within it. It teaches us the commandment of “love thy neighbor as yourself.” You see, God doesn’t tell us to “Love your neighbor as yourself, but only if they look and act like you, or live like you do.” No, God calls us to love everyone, and to treat them with the same respect, no matter who they are. On October 31^st, we get that right for once.

Jane Goodall once said, “You cannot get through a single day without making an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference. You just have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” I can’t tell you the number of times a positive comment or gesture has caused me to do something good for someone else, or just shifted my entire mood completely, or a negative remark has shifted my mood completely, or made me feel worthless. We may think nothing of turning away from those who are different, but that one sideways glance can ruin someone’s whole day.

What if instead of turning away from those who are different from us, we loved our neighbor as ourselves, and welcomed them, asked them about who they really are, and gave them a gift? What if instead of just giving out candy only on Halloween, we handed out gifts every day? What if instead of Skittles, Twix, or Reese’s Cups every day, we handed out love, acceptance, and empathy? What if we always lived like it was Halloween?