“Do as I say, not as I do.”

We don’t scare easy, kids.

October 3rd was our wedding anniversary and we took a day off to visit the nearby town of McCormick. We live in a lake district, connected to other little old towns and communities which lay along the tributaries which flow to and from the river, which was dammed to build the lake back in the 40s, when they were still using mules to clear land.

McCormick is mostly a retirement community now. There is a train depot, an antique store, a bookstore, a coffee shop and a couple restaurants on the main street. Our fancy five year anniversary plan was to go the antique store and the pizza place.

When the day came and we were preparing to leave the kids with my mom, we both admitted to each other that we wished the older two (ages four and two) could tag-along and so we decided to include them. I keep the children at home so much (there being so much to do on a small farm) that when we do take them “out” they are always so entertaining. This often reminds me of what Lewis told Tolkien, who had as yet kept the little-folk within the confines of the Shire: “Hobbits are only amusing when in unhobbitlike situations.”

When we arrived, the town had been decorated for Halloween, and hanging in front of the antique store there were genuinely scary things, life-size zombies and other bizarre creatures with horrible faces and white eyes. I am (like most mom’s I expect) quite sensitive to what my children might be feeling, usually a step ahead of it and eloquent with my mini sermons on what they should do and how they should respond when they feel a certain way, etc. and so as we walked toward the door, I reminded them these things weren’t real, that they were simply an incredibly ugly decoration to commemorate a remarkably beautiful season, which is truly stupid and there is no need to be afraid of stupidity, and my dear husband to humor me laughed comically as we walked past them which the kids got a kick out of. So far so good, but when we entered we found these creatures literally everywhere inside. There had to be nearly thirty of them scattered around the place and some of them moved and made creepy noises.

I tried not to be angry because I do have a fiery temper, which can only sometimes make a difficult situation so much worse, but really, what kind of person takes so much pleasure in the grotesque, disgusting and horrific? At my best I can imagine that perhaps these sixty-something childless retirees feel nostalgic when they decorate like this, but I think they are actually just misremembering what it was like to really be a child, having been so disconnected from actual children for so long. My grandparents had a Mr. Bones skeleton that we would hang on the front porch every Autumn and we would do our best to make scary faces in our jack-o-lanterns and tell ghost stories around the fire, but this has passed beyond all that and into the total demonic and the only goal must be to genuinely terrify innocents and put sights and thoughts into their heads which God never intended. Or else they don’t consider children at all, which is also demonic.

You can see I’m passionate about this (as I generally am about all things) and so as we walked around I just kept holding hands and bodies, as needed, reminding them to look at the beautiful things and that we didn’t need to be afraid.

And then, dear reader, as all was calm and I was backing up slowly, looking through old records, I — the strong convicted brave devoted Mother Bear in this story— I, as I said, backed into a zombie and it’s hand came down onto my shoulder…. and I screamed.

After a moment of stunned silence throughout the entire store, my husband laughed and the kids laughed and I was incredibly embarrassed, and they continued to mock me and recreate the scene as we ate pizza and drove home and until their little heads drooped in their carseats, and it occurred to me that maybe that did more for the children than all my preaching ever could. Not that the Lord doesn’t love a fiery mother, I know he does and he has a lot of tenderness for us as we try to keep them from evil, but we mustn’t forget that He is doing his own preaching, too, and he doesn’t mind using us as his sermon illustrations. Sometimes he might speak through an ass, and sometimes he might let you be that ass. Use me, Lord, however you want. I would like to be a magnificent matriarch who strikes genuine fear into the hearts of your enemies, like the warrior queens of old, but if you want to use me for the joke that keeps the children’s hearts light one October day in a small town, well that’s alright too.