The season of autumn is here.
Days are shorter, nights are longer.
I like the growing darkness.
It’s quiet.
It’s peaceful.
It makes me look inside and think about my life.
And the meaning of life.

Halloween is coming.
I think about my costume.
Will I be a pirate or a princess?
A cowboy or a clown?
A mime with a white face and red hat?
A fireman, Spiderman, or a mermaid?

Will I be Harry Potter or Hermione?
Dumbledore, Hagrid?
Or one of Harry’s other friends?

For a special Halloween “some time ago,” Dave Denny was Harry Potter, I was Hermione, and my sister Connie was Ron!

Will I go out trick or treating?
Celebrate with family and friends?
Will I carve a pumpkin?
Or two? Or three?

I choose to carve a smiling face on my jack-o’-lantern.
He lights up the night.
He lights up the world.
He smiles at me, at my neighbors,
At the whole world.
Why is he smiling?

St. Philip Neri smiled a lot, played tricks.
Told jokes from the altar.
He was seriously silly.
Why was he smiling?

Why am I smiling?
Thich Nhat Hanh said, “If we are not able to smile,
The world will not have peace….
You need to smile even to your sorrow,
Because you are more than your sorrow.”

Jesus said, “Unless you become like little children,
You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”

St. Paul said we need “holy folly.”
St. Teresa said, “Lord, deliver me from sour-faced saints!”

I’m not sour-faced.
I’m smiling.

Let me be a little child.
Let me play the fool like Philip Neri.
Let me put on my Halloween costume.
Let me smile like my jack-o’-lantern.

Jesus burst out of the tomb and rose from the dead.
Life out of death.
Light out of darkness.

Smile, jack-o’-lantern, and remind me.
Smile, jack-o’-lantern, smile.