Wherein Amanda talks about witchcraft, deception, trickery, striped socks, and other things that might have her burned/read out of meeting in 1700.

Yeah. Halloween.

It's been my favourite holiday for a long time. I am desperately bored with the history behind the whole thing, how it went from a Feast Vigil into Satan's playground, and I'm sure you are, too, so I won't go into that. I am intensely uninterested in that particular set of moral dilemmas.

It's enough to know that around the age of 8, Halloween in our house turned into All Saint's Day. I can't say I was thrilled. There are not very many Rainbow Brite Star Wars Polly Pocket Fairy Princess Carebear My Little Pony Saints in the catalog. But I still managed to work around the restrictions. I'd pour over Lives of the Saints, choosing mostly by the pictures, and by who had the best outfit. Sometimes we'd stretch the boundaries and label anyone that showed up in the bible (except Satan) fair game. I got to go as an Egyptian Queen, (the chick that found Moses), a queen, (St. Helena), a queen, (St. Elizabeth of Hungary),a grotesque burn victim (St. Lawrence of Rome), and a zombie..er...leper...er...St Lazarus. All scoffing aside, it was always a fun time, and it's probably why I can tell you the lifestory of many obscure saints.

As soon as I could, though, I trekked my way back to the evil door of Halloween. I've worked for three different costume shops. I have three professional books on stage makeup. One year I was paid $100 bucks to design the make-up for a low-budget horror film revolving around Demented Clowns. That was the same year I set up a little side business attaching those gross latex things to people's faces. Right now I am costume mistress at the Ballet Theatre. I'm the chick everyone comes to for help planning their costume for any costume event. Before I went plain, half my closet was devoted to "this will come in handy for someone's costume".

Oh yeah.

I went plain.

I'm still dressing up for Halloween. I'm going to be a DooWop Vampire. Yes. I am.

Last night I was discussing Halloween costumes with Rachel. I noticed Jeff looking utterly ambivalent, but I tried to ignore him. Later, we walked the dog.


"I am a frivolous beast." I declared.

"What? Why do you say that?"

"I just am."

"????"

I explained that pretty much everything I like most is "pointless" and does not "further the glory of God". It's true. I like brightly coloured underpants. And tutus and pointe shoes. Also useless miniature figurines like the ones that come in Monopoly. I like movie musicals and muppets. I like theatre and opera and sketch TV. I'm not crazy about the Carebears any more but I sure do like Smurfs. I eat gummi bears from Germany. I like ultra-amoral back-and-white French New Wave art films. My favourite t-shirt of all time was from Old Navy and it was 100% rainbow striped. I enjoy eating peppermint flavoured lifesavers by the dozen. Once I was a ren-faire dweeb. I enjoy reading websites about cryptozoology, and I watch shows on The Discovery Channel like "The Half Ton Man" and "I Am My Own Twin". I eat Sugar Daddy lollipops. I miss fishnet stockings in several colours and getting my picture taken in fours in the pub photo booth. I like scotch and I even sometimes drink "Bitch Beer". I read Science Fiction and all kinds of novels, and I adore poetry. I giggle when people teach me a new obscenity and practice it to myself in the mirror. I've always wanted to play paintball, just once. I like Bollywood. Sequins are fun. I still read the American Girl Catalog. I was happiest with my hair when my hair was cut like Ringo's and dyed a nutty auburn. I like brightness and shininess and things that are red. Especially if all those three qualities are found in a shoe. I love blankets and wasting time lying in bed. Also, I like kittens. Puppies. Rabbits.

And I love, love, love to dress up.

"How," Jeff asked "can you be plain and celebrate Halloween?"

"It's...it's...it's play." I said.

We had a long and fairly thoughtful conversation. Jeff came up with a few good answers to his question, though he said he still couldn't see how it was to the glory of God. But all I could think was, "It's play! I'm still allowed to play, dammnit, grey socks, black shoes, and white underpants notwithstanding."

(I don't really wear white underpants.)

And I felt something very like panic rising up in me. Also something very much like pouting. I felt horrible. Again and again I have given up things that I loved because I couldn't see how they were in service to God. Like that fateful time I gave up the opportunity to get my BFA in acting and last minute threw myself into a religious school I knew nothing about, all because it seemed somehow likelier to please God.

I said something to the effect of all this to Jeff, and he asked:

"Well, did you ever think that maybe a life of monasticism and plainness is not for you?"

It felt like a slap in the face, though I knew it was said in love. Without thinking, I reacted with a flash of self-hatred.

"It's not meant for my corrupt fleshy bits. It's meant for my good bits. My saintly bits. And for now the crappy frivolous beasty bits out-number the rest. Okay?"

I backslid right into a steaming pile of Original Sin, an idea that has always curdled in my soul. A feeling that I'm somehow tainted, wrong, off. That I must do violence to myself, cutting off my hand or eye. That there are parts of me that are rotten and putrid and that must be stripped away, pruned, weeded, burned. Choose your illustration.

As I stewed in these thoughts, I began to wonder, "Well, what is this will of God I am always supposed to be sacrificing things to? How does this or that bit of denial "Glorify Him" more? What does God want? What Glorifies God?"

Well, the answer's pretty familiar. We were created to love. We were created perfectly to love. We are created in the image of the Lover. That's what we are, that's what we're here for. In the absence of any other evidence, with the presence of a thousand "X-factors", this is the only Will of God we know or have any way of knowing. Love is the glory of God. And if we're created in Love, by Love, and to Love, then the only things that need to be stripped away are the things that are not us, that are foreign to us, that have been added on after the fact. Anything that comes between us and our created ability to love has got to go. God requires from us authenticity....to be our true, created selves--the selves that are perfectly tuned for Loving.

Jeff was talking about the fundemental difference between Simplicity and Plainness. From what I gathered it had to do with Plainness being a sign of a religious witness/committment. To dress for the glory of God.

As I've been struggling with my plainness in the past few months, I've found this division difficult. I went plain because I didn't want to be the rich young man who went away sad. I had several issues at hand...I felt that I used fancy clothes as a way to be other than my Authentic self...the self who was created to Love. I also felt that consumption and materialism have real, measurable effects on the world around me. Abusing my fellow creatures, who labour in sweatshops, and abusing my home the earth, which staggers under the weight of landfills and poison, is not Loving.

But the grey, and the long skirts, and the kerchief?

I don't know. In the beginning I wanted them to connect me to Quakerism in some sort of tangible ways. I wanted a feeling of kinship with the long-dead Friends who taught me in their books. I also wanted a feeling of togetherness with the plain people I ran into online, who all seemed to think like me. These people, I felt, called out to my more authentic self, and I wanted to honour that, to make myself as palpably a part of that as I could.

I have found that greatly restricting my wardrobe has led to much less consumerisim on my part. The ideas about clothes have spread to other areas of consumption. Freeing myself from every-day makeup was a revelation. I didn't feel that I had to "fix" myself so much anymore to be ready for people to see me. Not spending $40 to $120 (yes.) dollars on haircuts every two months was another important step. I can't live like that when the world is starving and call myself a Lover of God.

I have found that the grey, the long skirts, and the kerchief do often help me to "act holier". I move more cautiously and gently through space, and I feel a bit more meek. I never flirt with counter-help or grin at someone across the subway when I am in a long black dress the way I might in a cute pair of cords. I don't shoot whiskey in a bar with my head covered. I think a lot about "what kind of image I am giving?" when I look "holy". And this is, I think, for the better.

If the grey makes me more loving, I'll keep wearing it. But I'm not sure if I am more loving in grey or in a pair of rainbow-striped kneesocks. I'd hope that as long as neither the grey nor the rainbow was made in a sweatshop, and the rainbow kneesocks were not a sign of me trying to be other than I am, then I'd be equally loving in both.

Am I called to a life of monasticism and plainness? I don't know. I'm called to life of love and authenticity. Every choice I make, from clothes up, should reflect and further those ends. Because those ends are the only Will of God I am likely to ever know. I can't claim to know what God's fashion sense is. I don't know if that puts my clothing/practice into the "plain" corral. To be honest, I'm not sure that that particular tag is so important to me anymore.

Whatever happens with all of the above, is authentic of me to play, and dress up. Play and imagination and fantasy are a large part of who I am.

I will have it be known that have never been less loving when I was wearing fangs.