Halloween, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days represent a friendly (if bony, skeletal) handshake between Paganism and Christianity, an exaltation of escape and revelry, as well as somber respect for death and those whom it has claimed. I still love graveyards, rattling chains, black cats, black velvet, and all manner of spooky things. And I adore the blessing of sacred serendipity — that you can discover yourself while pretending to be someone else. That you can pray for a guiding angel and God will send Alice Cooper.
-From an essay by Lily Burana on The New York Times’ Women in the World page, about trying to reconcile her love of Halloween and all things Goth with her “surprisingly Jesus-y” faith, plus the time she asked for a sign from God that she was in the right church and looked up to see Alice Cooper dressed in “Goth golfer casual.”
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