Sugar Deficit of the Soul

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

I have never been trick-or-treating. I did not realize that until Helen asked me about it on our way home last night.

We had gone to the grandchild house to do our usual duty, handing out candy to princesses and monsters and even a deep-sea diver, while Katie and Patrick walked a discreet distance behind Brigid and Joe as they rang doorbells at other houses to collect enough candy to last at least until Christmas candy canes and chocolate oranges replaced it.

This year, though, was different. Joe, dressed as an evil chef, and his friend, Zach, a gorilla, went out on their own, with no need or desire for trailing parents, and Brigid, a sophisticated high schooler now, did candy handouts along with her parents. Nothing for Helen and me to do except sit on the sofa and admonish the dog for barking whenever the door bell rang.

I have been trick-or-treating with our children, of course, doing the trailing-parent thing, standing out in the street chatting with other young fathers while Cinderella and Daniel Boone and Spiderman went from door to door. But I have never myself rung a doorbell and threatened mayhem if I were not bought off with a Milky Way or a Jesus tract.

Halloween was not a big thing from 1941-1947, the years when I was a kid in Indianapolis. Those were war years, and no material was available for costumes, no sugar for candy. All celebrations were muted, at best. When I was ten we moved to the country and didn’t have a car, so trick-or-treating wasn’t even a possibility.

Now I wonder if the absence of trick-or-treating as a child might be the source of all my problems—the inability to beg or threaten or disguise myself or walk at night without stumbling, a sugar deficit of the soul. It explains a lot about my inadequacies.

On the other hand, it might explain why I am not afraid of ghosts or goblins, of zombies or vampires, of skeletons or monsters. Or death.

JRMcF

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

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{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}

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