Camp: Awaken to real rebirth

Our celebration of Halloween is the result of several older festivals. The Celts of ancient Ireland celebrated their New Year on Nov. 1 and prepared for the coming winter with the festival of Samhain.

Their harsh winters often were times of death. Some did not make it through the long darkness and cold.

They had a real awareness of the dangers in life, of illness, starvation, cold and other threats to health and safety.

According to the Celtic myth, the spirits of the dead were freed and walked among the living on the evening before their New Year. These spirits of the dead remind us that death is a real part of life.

Christian history includes All Saints Day, the remembrance of saints known and unknown. These saints are those who have revealed to us the abundant life of love and service inspired by God's love.

As Christianity spread into Ireland, the two festivals came together, and the recognition of death the day before All Saints Day became All Hallows Eve - the night before remembering the saints.

These two festivals can stimulate awareness of a creative tension in our lives. When we are asleep to the realities of life, we are dead. In this state we cannot love, for all differences are threatening. We cannot understand each other, because we do not understand ourselves.

We pretend fear in Halloween, dressed as skeletons and ghosts, but we also might realize that this is what we are in our supposed living. In this dead state we are controlled by our anxiety; we point the finger in blame rather than seek to understand; we deh