Saving Ghosts: A Halloween Meditation

Saving Ghosts: A Halloween Meditation

James Ishmael Ford

I recall a few years ago going with Jan and some friends to an event in support of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry up in Boston, taking us out on a rare evening visit to the city’s downtown. It was, also, downtown on a Halloween weekend. Like this weekend. We parked about three blocks from where we were going. And as we walked along it was obvious magic was in the air. I first noticed a large mini-skirted bunny rabbit flag down a cab. Then, Jan nudged me as we walked past a vampire, a clown and a pirate standing together engaged in what appeared to be a serious conversation. In the three blocks we walked from the car to the event we passed a surprising number of strange and mysterious creatures each engaged in their own adventures. Now, just to be clear, I’m not talking the shorter variety of ghosts and goblins going about in small and large packs from door to door. There were some of those, but these were mostly the taller ones.

I love this season.

There’s a television commercial running now, I forget what it’s hawking. But, it follows a young woman wearing an astronaut’s gear walking surrounded by people, each wearing the costumes of their fantasies, displaying their dream selves. It felt that Halloween night was sort of like that.

And, I find myself thinking of monarch butterflies on their great migration, following some mysterious current of their being that takes them home, to a home they never actually knew before they arrived. Like that migration I wonder if this stepping out among the wondrous creatures as one of them is something deep in our bones, in our psyche, in our souls, as well. This feels an important time, that I’m sure of, a time to pause, to remember, and to explore, spreading our wings, and flying out to that butterfly home.

I think of bunny rabbits and astronauts and, of course, those other creatures of the night, vampires and ghouls and skeletons. And, and, I think of the many spirits that are always with us, some joyous, others not so much so. No doubt to me spirits surround us, that fabled cloud of witnesses. By the bye, as you know I use that line “cloud of witnesses” a lot. It’s from the Book of Common Prayer, which ranks right after Shakespeare and the King James Bible as a sourcebook of phrase and allusion in our shared Western heritage. That said, once a younger member of our community, after a service where I used that phrase, inquired about that crowd of witnesses. She noticed the courthouse just down the street from the church. Did they come from there?

Cloud or crowd, perhaps this, more than any other, is the time we find the ghosts of memory, and longing, and hope really surrounding us. As I said, some ghosts are joyous. But, some ghosts are sad. These days on Halloween night, wandering from house to house, and for the larger set, to parties of one sort or another, the ghosts we encounter are mostly happy, at least so long as candy or cocktails are involved.

But, what about the other ghosts? The crowd of ghosts in our hearts is pretty big. And the longer we live, the more of them there are walking along with us. Today I find myself thinking more of the hurting ones, the ones that hang about half forgotten, lurking in the shadows of our dreams?

This reminds me of a spiritual question asked in some circles. It goes, “How do you save a ghost?”

Now that’s a question. How would you save a ghost? How do you free a ghost? How do you release a ghost? The sad ones? The mean ones? The bad ones? The one’s we would usually rather not notice?

I’m curious. Anyone here have an opinion? I’m particularly interested in what the younger set might have to say. But, anyone, how would you save a ghost? How do you free a ghost?

(a time for discussion)

In Japan and other countries in the Far East, food is set out for the ghosts. And there are similar traditions in Europe. No doubt those are helpful ways. But, there are deeper ways to save, to free, our ghosts. I think.

The poet Marie Howe provides a pointer I find useful for this season of saints and souls, of longing and of liberation, of how we might go about liberating our ghosts. It’s from the title poem of her collection What the Living Do. It’s partially a recollection of her recently died brother.

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss–we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

That’s our work.

Remembering the saints and the souls.

Putting it all together.

And with that returning to the cool cold day with those cold bliss bestowing hands.