I realize this blog appears Saturday, but on the occasionally well-organized week, I write it (or at least think about it) a few days before. This week, those before days included these odd bookends: Halloween and All Saints Day.

Designated days invite us to reflect or even behave in certain ways; this year, I was drawn by the annual, curious juxtaposition of these two days. I have never leaned into the Halloween festivities; the need to put on a strange, exciting costume taxes my limited and probably inhibited imagination.  But the notion of masks, "persona" in psychological language, haunts all our days, in ways both helpful and troubling.

Our "masks" are the alter egos we need to draw on in various settings, both professional and personal. We all have multiple parts, multiple roles; some are more comfortable or "truer" than others.  But the repertoire is important. As long as we don't get stuck behind a mask for too long, they are necessary tools.

So on one hand, Halloween, is a day of encouraged disguise and/or revelation. On the other hand, All Saints Day, is a day of ongoing encouragement - to step out from behind the mask.  This day commemorates those who have gone on, those who have guided us. We all have folks in the "balcony" of our lives who remind us of what is most true, most important, who maybe modeled a life of integrity.

These can also be people who reached out when our own unmasked identities were most vulnerable, and steadied us. As Albert Schweitzer has written:

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.  Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."    

Take a moment to think of those who rekindled your spark... a teacher, a mentor, a parent, a friend, an author?

In our own lives we have the opportunity to continue not just the Halloween tradition, but one of sainthood, too. We can love, and help the oppressed, and be that person who lights a flame in someone else. One more juxtaposition, given tomorrow's New York Marathon:

"Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run the race that is set before us." - Hebrews 12:1

Wishing you all a week of weights laid aside...