Slightly
out-of-sync, because I was away for a few days at the end of last week, but
this weekend just past saw All Saints’
Day – when the Church remembers the saints and martyrs whose stories of
costly faith in their own day inspire us – and All Souls’ Day, or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed –
when we remember, with thanksgiving, those we have known personally who have
gone ahead of us into God’s presence.
The
shops have been stripped of their Halloween merchandise, to make (more) room
for Christmas. But for the Church, from All Saints to the start of Advent is a
four-week Season to help us engage with death well.
My
observation is that churches up and down the land are engaging with Halloween
by offering very young children a ‘Light Night’ alternative to a night that has
become increasingly commercialised and Americanised [there is nothing wrong
with American festivals, but we aren’t in America], and inappropriately frightening for the very young. But on the whole we
are doing less with our teenagers, and with the junior-school age-group who
aspire towards the next stage. And this Season is a gift for them.
First
we should note that fantasy horror is one of the defining genres for teens
(e.g. the Twilight series). This is
not just coincidence, or good marketing. The zombie is the ultimate type for
adolescence: a creature whose face is erupting; whose limbs are gangly and not
under the full control of their owner; whose brain is experiencing a re-wiring;
whose language descends into groans and grunts; who reaches out for acceptance,
but seems only capable of hurting those who don’t run away. In the transition
from death to childhood but not yet restoration as a healthy adult, teens
identify with zombies. In the experience of feeling different, of wanting to
express themselves differently, and of needing to be part of a gang or pack
other than their human family, teens also identify with vampires and
werewolves, and other stories of ‘ordinary’ teenagers thrown into battle
against elemental forces in parallel dimensions.
And
in the same way that TV dramas with a teen-life focus (e.g. The Next Step) are actually pitched at
younger children, giving them an image to aspire to, so the teen genre of
fantasy horror is also – and quite sensitively – being pitched at younger
audiences (e.g. Wolfblood, Nowhere Boys).
Starting
with Halloween, we have an opportunity to tell stories, with a high fantasy
horror content (that is to say, martyrdom is real and gory, but can be told at
the level that Horrible Histories
pitches itself at). Stories such as St Francis embracing lepers, the zombies of
their day. Or Christians hiding in the catacombs of Rome, facing death in the
gladiatorial arena. To tell stories that don’t make disfigurement an object of
fun or an incarnation of evil, and don’t portray violence as attractive, but
that point to the disarming strength of a community of love, a community that
cannot be destroyed, even by death.
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