Trick-or-treat what’s your costume?

 Trick or Treat! Hey what’s your costume?

If you live in the middle of the  U.S. then you can almost always count on one thing.  The weather  on or about Halloween is going to take a drastic turn and not for the better.  Sometimes it’s right on the 31st, but more often it is on beggers’ night when the kids, sometimes not so little come knocking seeking something to rot their teeth and thwart any serious  effort to promote public health.  

With the parade of candy craving vampires, clowns and other creeps (no not politicians)  we see all kinds of unique costume efforts and some not so ambitious efforts.  This prompts a question.

What costumes  have we worn or do we wear without  getting much candy to show for it?  

Do we wear a dress shirt and a tie to convince  folks to drop a few extra dollars in our wallet?  Do we wear a white coat to convince  people we know about their bodies than they do?  Do we wear a polyester uniform with a matching hat to convince  folks the “want fries with that?”  Do we wear a badgee, belt,hard hat or tutu?  Do we do these things to tell folks  who we are and what to expect?  did we wear a plaid skirt or shirt with a collar to convince the pontiff  that we were on the way to salvation?  Did we tie dye  things to prove our far out grooviness?  Do

Do we put on these costumes to show people  we are just acting the part or to show others we are comfortable  in our skin?  Do we put on the costumes  to change our attitude toward the actions we are about to take.  In short, are these costumes  about acceptance?  

While this is not a promotion for nudity, it seems. Like sometimes the search for peace and joy gets derailed a bit when we start confusing the costumes. We wear with the people  we are.  We get caught up in attaching what we do with who we are and the purpose for doing it.  Surely sometimes we wear a costume to represent  our true self,however how often  is it done to show folks what we think they want to see?  

How often do we wear a costume because it is what someone else  believes “fits us (not that I’m bitter  about having to wear that little clown outfit for three years in a row…yep the one with the plastic mask with holes that never really lined up with my eyes and nose….. thus I was a totally blind asthmatic tiny kid running through the neighborhood yelling wait up and trick or treat snapping out  an occasional thank you as I turned to go down steps trying to avoid the next Cinderella and Abe Lincoln.  

Ok I’m over that sort of…except the streak of being the clown ended with being a pirate with a homemade wooden sword that was somehow converted into a nice wooden  paddle I suspect  this sort of hardened  my heart with regard to the Halloween costume deal.  

In sum, we all wer some costumes  once in a while.  If you are  in charge of what another person wears be aware of what it means…. Does it mean someone is  a part of a team or is it meant to dull someone’s individuality?  Helping someone be identified as unique is not the same as grouping  them with a label suggested by brown pants and a polo shirt with a name tag clipped to it.  

If we can all be aware of our costumes then we can all be more comfortable with the great people  underneath.   

Trick or Treat!