National Day of Service: Obamawe'en

Once we knew there was darkness in the world.

Once we knew there was evil.

We saw it, right in the midst of our daily lives, and we wanted to remember it, to remind ourselves to be watchful for it forever.

And a day was set aside every year, just before the Feast of All Saints, a day when evil was acknowledged to walk freely in the world.

In the pre-Christian era, it was called Walpurgistnacht. With the dawn of the Christian era, it came to be known as All Hallow's Eve, Hallowe'en, the day when we all acknowledged that evil was real and free to roam the world around us.

But time passed. And we grew distant from the world around us, insulated by our strong homes and creature comforts and beliefs that were easy to hold in the daylight and laws we gulled ourselves into believing would hold the dark at bay with no effort or watchfulness on our part.

And the day we set aside for watchfulness and facing reality became a day of trifling amusements and novelties, a day of laughter and treats for children.

But the evil did not grow distant, and was not trifling, and did not forget.

Now we are told that this day is to be a day of trifles again, of irrelevant little once-a-year acts, to make an end of this day when we acknowledge that evil exists.

Because it is politically inconvenient.

Not again. Never again. We will remember, and we will declare our remembrance... and we will remember the people who tell us we shouldn't.