Redeeming Halloween

Halloween has turned into a very ghoulish event with more and more cemeteries, skeletons and grinning skulls showing up on people's lawns each year. I have always liked the dressing up and candy collecting parts of this annual event, but I can't stand the macabre parts. In fact, I wonder what parents who are usually so protective of their children are thinking when they expose them to hawk-nosed witches, groaning corpses in caskets and haunted houses filled with ghosts. Mocking evil and death may be our way of turning up our noses at the Grim Reaper, but it is hardly conducive to a child's good sleep.
Thankfully, kids have a way of focusing on the costumes and the treats, making it a good experience over all. In the meantime, others have found ways to redeem the night so that good still trumps evil.
Among those redeeming Halloween are the teenagers from various church youth groups in the area who will be out collecting food for the local foodbanks. When you see them coming to the door, trick or treating for hope, receive them with respect and give them some groceries. In so doing, on the most ghoulish night of the year, you can, in the words of a Bruce Cockburn song, help them "kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight."