“And they will wander from sea to sea, from frozen waste to where the sun rises. They will run about and seek the word of the Holy One, but they won’t find it” (Amos 8.12).
Before moving to the house in which we’ve spend the past decade, Leanne and I never had trick-or-treaters come to our door. So, we’ve been thrilled to find, every 31 October, fifty or sixty kids ringing our doorbell as the day ends, and our neighborhood slips into autumn darkness.
This is why I love Halloween night. Unlike every other night of the year porch lights blaze, doors are opened wide, laughing voices fill the night. And, marking the doorways the flickering light of Jack O’-Lanterns.
Like a lot of old traditions, there’s no definitive story behind these carved and lit gourds. The one I like is that of a rather shifty fellow that’s called Jack. Old Jack, we’re told isn’t the best of folks. He doesn’t have any family or close friends. And, one night, the Devil comes to collect his soul. Jack manages to trick Old Scratch into climbing a tree to which he carves a cross into its trunk, preventing the Devil from climbing down. Out of this stunt, Jack manages to extract the Devil’s agreement not to take his soul to hell.
This sounds like a good ending until Jack finds, when his days are up, that Heaven won’t take him. So, with St. Peter’s refusal and the Devil’s agreement, Jack finds himself trapped upon earth, doomed to continue on alone. It’s said that, for light, he hollowed out and carved a gourd that he carries, wandering until the world ends.
The name Jack is like our Joe, it’s a name for the nameless. It’s one we use for both those whose name is unknown and for anyone we might encounter. The unidentified dead are John Doe, the millions living their everyday lives are Average Joes. Jack serves the same purpose for our neighbors across the pond, it’s both someone unknown and anyone.
As such, Jack is perhaps just another incarnation of the traveler—the Flying Dutchman, the Knight Errant—who is doomed to journey on and on along a road without a destination in sight. Cursed, for lack of a better word, to go throughout their long life alone, companionless.
Maybe, like me, you heard that the pumpkins on our porches were meant to scare off the evil spirits in the night. And, perhaps, that tradition is true as well. But the story of Jack has made me look at those flickering candles behind their triangle eyes and jagged mouths as something meant to awaken a fear in us—a fear that reminds us of the horror of a life separated from others.
On a night when doorbells and door-knocks are welcome, how much more important is it for us to see the lone traveler’s light? To remind us that our communities, large or small, are not givens or promised but just as fragile as a pumpkin’s orange skin. And that they must be handled with care, lest they lie irreparable.
And we are left alone in the dark of night.
Christ you are light, and you both illuminate the darkness and enable us to shine in the dark. Help us to share our light with love; so, when night falls, no one is left alone in the night.