all hallows day

coming up quickly is one of my favourite holidays, and the fifthteenth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood: all saints day, or all hallows in the olde language, remembered by most of us these days i'm afraid only in the rather banal activities of the hallmark holiday of halloween.

but even halloween remembers the glory of the day, it being one of the major feasts which is still celebrated in the ancient hebrew (and celtic) manner beginning with the evening. (see the first chapter of genesis: "the evening and the morning were the . . . day.")

unfortunately each year there is a silly struggle between rather fundamentalist christians and neo-pagans about who "owns" the holiday. the fundies saying that the feast should not be celebrated by christians because it is pagan, the pagans claiming the catholics (hated fairly evenly by both sides) have "stolen" it. as if we all inhabited different planets, as if we could, as we so easily assume we do, create the creator according to our own principles.

but of course our understanding of creation and creator are closely linked, and that is why i find the longevity of this holiday so fascinating and exciting. everyone finds it one of the "thin spaces." here at the turn of the year, whether that year begins in september (for the orthodox) or on the first of november (for the celtic crew) or with the first sunday of advent (for the western church), is a time when the veil, the difference between kairos and chronos, even the space between augustine's city of man and city of god, is very small.

and it is a wonderful fulfillment and reminder of the gift of the holy spirit that we celebrate just six months away at pentecost. these two days, pentecost and all saints, are the antipodal feasts of the holy spirit, of the breath of the universe, of the wind which blows where it will, sanctifying "all sorts and conditions of men" (and women), often as much to their surprise as anyone else's. and it is a time for all of the rest of us to be reminded that we should "not dream it, be it." when else do so many wonderful paths of our fumbling seeking after the holy cross so wondrously?