Samhain

Over the years, many people have told me that Halloween is their favorite holiday.
Our Halloween is based in part on the ancient Celtic high holy day of Samhain.
It can be a day and time of deep spiritual renewal for everyone.

North Idaho Unitarian Universalists

October 26, 2014


At this time of year we enter a season of holidays.

The one coming up soonest is Halloween,
   and since childhood it has been one of my favorites.

I know a lot of people love it, too,
    and I think there are good reasons to love it beyond childhood.

Many adults love to dress up and wear costumes and go to parties
   celebrating the scary and yet exhilarating feelings of the day.

The changing of the season, the turning of the wheel
  evokes a lot of different feelings for all of us.

By October 31, it is very clear that the warmer seasons are over for this year,
      and we are moving into a time of cooler - and even colder - weather
               and the time of dormancy of Mother Nature.

 - - - at least in the North! - - -

Since we live in the North of our planet and our country,
   this season is especially meaningful to us
      and to others like us.

As Unitarian Universalists,
  the upcoming holy day of Halloween has roots
     that correspond to our own pagan, or earth based,
        roots of spirituality.

As most of you probably know well,
    Halloween has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.

And yes, that is the correct pronunciation of the title of today's sermon.

It's an ancient Celtic word,
   and many of those words appear very peculiar to speakers of modern English.

At the same time,
    ancient Celtic spirituality and culture
       comprise the real and original "Old Time Religion"
           in which we have deep roots - - -

       and not only as Unitarian Universalists.

Our entire culture shares in this heritage,
      and the Christians among us are influenced by it
            whether some of them like it or not.

Halloween is not always popular among fundamentalist Christians.

In my own ministry,
   I have encountered mixed feelings related to it.

There were those who feared that Halloween involved dangerous kinds of play
   with witches, demons, and other representatives of the dark side.

I have always tried to emphasis the positive side of things.

In the context of ministry with people who were afraid of Halloween,
    I would talk about how healthy it is to laugh at the things that frighten us.

Fear holds no power at all in the face of laughter.

It isn't always possible to laugh when we are faced with real danger,
     but meeting danger effectively
       is the one true and right purpose of fear.

When we are not in immediate danger,
   fear is not appropriate,
     and it can be disabling.

Sometimes we are taught to fear -
    often unnecessarily -

out of superstition that emphasizes the dark side of things -

    - or as a result of religious or political leaders
           who exploit fear
              as a way of controlling gullible people.

If any of this sounds familiar,
     we are seeing a lot of it in our time.

As the election approaches,
  there are pundits and commentators who are nearing hysterical levels

    in the provocation of fear
      in order to persuade a few more people to vote the way they want them to vote.

As a truly horrendous example,
      an aide to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas (the place from which I escaped)
               made the comment, "Before Obamacare there was not a single confirmed case of Ebola in the U.S."

Needless to say,
  I am strongly opposed to the misuse of fear in this way,
     and over time it has been misused by both sides,

        left and right,
   in this country and all around the world.

My own priority leans heavily toward spirituality
     and the use of our traditions to help us grow
           emotionally and intellectually.

Living in fear,
   whether the fear is appropriate to the circumstances or not,
       tends to stifle growth.

So people who are frightened by the symbols of Halloween
     will do well to learn to laugh at their fears.

In case you have friends or family who need to hear this message,
    you can speak their language a little bit
       and remind them that the devil is a proud spirit
         who cannot bear to be mocked.

If you laugh at him,
    you take away his power.

After all,
   the devil is a Christian myth and metaphor,
     and whether we have any shared beliefs about him,
       we can use him as a tool of communication

        just as we use many myths and metaphors from other religious traditions.

As Unitarian Universalists,
      we are particularly adept at this kind of wide ranging understanding and use of myth and metaphor.

One of the things I appreciate most in my experience with Unitarian Universalist communities
     is that these places and people
           are the unique opportunity in my life
              to practice the full range of my own spirituality.

And that brings us right back to Halloween and Samhain.

Both have been an important part of my own spiritual practice
        for many years.

Our cultural practices of Halloween have been meaningful to me since childhood,
       and in more ways than just the collection of sweets from my neighbors...

              ... although that is lots of fun ...

Halloween provides even deeper fun
     for those of us who have long outgrown "Trick - or - Treating" ourselves!

To recall the saying of Jesus,
     "It is more blessed to give than to receive,"

           It can be even more fun to watch and welcome
        the children who dress up and go from door to door

               than it was to go for ourselves.

In many of our neighborhoods,
     there are very few children going around trick - or - treating any more,

         and when it happens that there are fuew trick - or - treaters,
           it can help to remember that there are other ways to enjoy Halloween.

First and foremost,
    we can remember the holy day of Samhain
      that stands behind the holiday of Halloween.

You may remember my saying, "Beware the holidays, and enjoy the holy days."

The holidays will often disappoint us,
      but the holy days do not disappoint us
            if we remember their meaning.

Holy days become a time to practice our spirituality.

First and foremost,
    Samhain is a holy day
         because it is a thin time.

It is a time in which the separation of our material and spiritual selves
           begins to disintegrate.

The song by the Police, "We are spirits in the material world,"
   would be a perfect hymn for Samhain. :-)

Most of the time,
   our spiritual life is far from our material life,
          and we tend to forget the one while we are immersed in the other.

One way to make use of this time of year is personal, spiritual introspection during the thin time of Samhain.

That works especially well because the divide between spirit and matter is especially thin at this time of year.

We become aware of the spiritual realities in which we are immersed
     more easily than at other times.

A Native American proverb speacks to this:

_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+

Listen to the wind,
   it talks.

Listen to the silence,
   it speaks.

Listen to your heart,
   it knows.

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This kind of listening may seem spooky
  only because we are not accustomed to it.

Our culture does not always value spiritual introspection.

We all need it,
  but we are not always encouraged to do it.

When we are suddenly made aware that we are spirits in the material world,
   it can be startling!

When that happens at this time of year, as it often does,
   we can begin to associate it with Halloween and the chills and thrills that go with it.

There are some very simple, logical reasons
   why unexpected spiritual experiences and insights may come upon us at this time of year.

As the days get shorter and the nights get colder and longer,

As the cloud cover makes the already shorter days seem even darker,

And as the world of nature moves toward its dormant time,

          we are naturally more introspective.

We naturally begin to thing about life and death in more immediate and personal ways.

Our ancient ancestors were facing the long time of winter solitude,
   and as the days pointed more and more toward the quiet time of the year,
         it is natural that they would become quieter and more introspective as well.

Long nights around the family hearth
   would become the time for telling tales and remembering loved ones long gone.

It is no surprise, then, that Samhain became a time to remember and feel close to
       the spirits of those who have gone before us.

The Mexican customs surrounding the Day of the Dead
   are a fascinating expression of this time of introspection.

Families will go out and picnic in cemeteries,
   feeling that the loved ones who have died
      are still part of the family circle.

Sometimes they will eat and drink the favorite foods and beverages of the deceased,
      just to feel closer to them.

The Christian Feast of All Saints is the way the western Christians adopted this ancient holy day as their own.

The great hymn, "For All the Saints," which we sang this morning in its lovely Unitarian Universalist form,
        has long been one of my favorite hymns.

A special thank-you to Jeanie for choosing it for today's service.

As we work together, our spirituality shines more brightly than it does when we try to find our life's meaning by ourselves.

Our spiritual community is far deeper and wider than we see most of the time,
   and this time of year is a wonderful time to remember that encouraging reality.

I'm surely speaking of the wider community of Unitarian Universalists in this world
      as well as the wider community of people of good will of all kinds of religious traditions.

Those of us who seek to find common ground are everywhere, all over the world.

It just happens too often that we speak less loudly

        - most of the time -
    
     than those who point fingers and make accusations against people
              whose beliefs may be diferent from their own.

Tolerance is a religious virtue,
    and without it,

we will all have a difficult time creating a positive future together.

The wider spiritual community of which we are a part
   also includes those who have gone ahead of us into the world to come.

This is true for us
   whether or not we believe in a life beyond this life.

As most of you know, I do believe in it.

I also know that it is not possible to know much about it in the objective sense.

The reality I want to look at for a moment
   is that we all have memories of those who have gone before us,

         we rightly treasure many of those memories.

From those memories we construct our own personal, inner vision of the people we have loved in this life.

By doing so,
  we establish an enduring connection with them.

That connection is real for us as long as we live.

Memory is a very elastic thing,
   as careful study is showing more and more.

Therefore, as we remember our loved ones,
   we do well to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative as well and as often as we can.

Then we can make our own inner loved ones
   into even more positive and helpful influences in our daily lives
       than they may have been able to be in the past.

We can choose carefully what to focus on in our remembering.

We can choose to understand the events of the past in new ways,
     giving the kindest interpretation to the things that happened.

In this way,
     remembering our loved ones can be an experience of joy and healing.

Finally, as we approach the high holy day of Samhain,
   I personally feel a deep need to talk about our relationship with the world of nature.

All life that has breath is spiritual:
   The term Spirit in Greek and Hebrew is the same as the term for breath or wind.

The winds of Autumn can be for us a reminder of our relationship to the whole natural world.

The sound of wind in a pine tree or other evergreen
   can be a call to worship,

      the sound of a quiet reminder to look within.

My personal recommendation is that we all take a moment next Friday, on the Holy Day itself,
     to stand or sit in a comfortable place outdoors.

Be in touch with the feeling of Mother Earth upon who we stand
     and from whom we draw life energy.

Listen to the sounds of nature.

They are there, and not always drowned out by the human noises of a city or a town.

Feel the presence of life around you.

Trees are living creatures whose breath is slower than ours,

    and yet our own breath depends deeply upon theirs.

Think about those realities for a moment,
   and feel our connection to the wider reality of life.

As we do this,
  we will find that Halloween - Samhain -

    is a beautiful opportunity for personal, spiritual renewal

           whether we dress up in costumes or eat extra sweet things or not.

Blessed be, my friends.

Amen.

So Mote it Be.