Halloween and the Law

A neighbor on our street always does a huge Halloween display. Among his decorations are tombstones. Despite living on the same street and seeing his makeshift graveyard for six years now, this morning I saw it in a new light. The fake headstone in the picture here caught my attention this morning. In the midst of lots of "R.I.P" stones was one front and center. "Your time will come."

Everyone expects creepy and scary decorations at Halloween. Everyone expects skulls and skeletons, zombies and mummies, blood and gore galore. And it becomes comic. Or tamed, what with the softening of the classic creature, the vampire.

But if I had set up a bunch of signs in my front yard that said, "For the wages of sin is death" people would think I am a religious zealot (ok, I am, but not the way most folks expect). My neighbor's signs however, get to proclaim the reality of the law. As fallen human creatures we will die. Spooks and spirits aside, perhaps the real reason cemeteries give people the willies is at the very basic level they simply remind us of this reality of our existence.