Wayne Weekly “The Black and Orange Explosion”

Here we are, already into the fast and furious pre-Halloween retail blowouts. I wish the retailers would put as much effort into the Thanksgiving season as they do on all hallows’ eve. It has to do with money spent by consumers. Here are a few statistics:

• On an individual level, the average person plans to spend about $86 this year on average on Halloween, according to the National Retail Federation, which surveys consumers before every holiday to get estimates of their outlays.
• In 2016, US consumers spent approximately 8.4 billion U.S. dollars for the Halloween season.

I love autumn, I think most of us do. Though we condense most of our annual fun time into summer’s outdoor weather, there is something very special about the changing of the seasons. I could list all the reasons why most of us like the fall, but your list will most likely pretty much match mine. One I’ll mention, autumn walks.

Just this morning my daughter Jill and I together walked our dog, Daizy. That’s the routine each morning these days. I used to solo morning walks with the dog, but since we lost Maggie, our West Highland Terroir, Daizy has become very demanding in wanting Jill to come along.

The morning was warmish with a slight breeze. The sky was incredible as the sun introduced itself to the day. Streaks of orange, pink, grey and brownish-white painted upon a canvas of blue. You get the picture. The trees are changing here in central NY. I heard that the Adirondacks have already reached their peak in its outrageous foliage display. Jill and I took it all in, Jill calling the moment “dream-like”…and it was.

As a Christian, who with my wife Evie, raised two girls, we went through the Halloween season gamut of how to handle the event. We experienced the “totally abstain” philosophy, the “only church activity” plan, the “involvement with limitations” movement, and the “just go with the culture, but be guarded” approach. I think we incorporated a bit of all of the above, it was called the “Taylor” method.

Honestly, I’m not sure to this day if we really handled Halloween the “Christian” way. We tried to do the right thing, as did many of our friends. We played down the satanic aspect greatly, of course, and waited for it all to be over.

Halloween is not going away in this life, I’m sure of that. But we did what we thought was right for our family during the yearly “black and orange explosion”, and so far, it really hasn’t blown up in our face… though I think I see a trace of cultural residue on my hands.

“When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. ¹⁰Let
no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who
practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, ¹¹or
casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. ¹²Anyone
who does these things is detestable to the LORD; because of these same
detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.
¹³You
must be blameless before the LORD your God.”                                  Deuteronomy 18:9-13