The Halloween Edition of the Monday Funnies

What better day than to bring back the Monday Funnies than on Halloween? May you have many treats this week, and watch out for the ghouls. Happy Halloween and welcome to the Monday Funnies . . .

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A tourist in Vienna is going through a graveyard and all of a sudden he hears some music.

No one is around, so he starts searching for the source.

He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads: Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827.

Then he realizes that the music is the Ninth Symphony and it is being played backward! Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and persuades a friend to return with him.

By the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous piece, it is being played backward.

Curious, the men agree to consult a music scholar. When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again backward.

The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th.

By the next day the word has spread and a throng has gathered around the grave. They are all listening to the Second Symphony being played backward.

Just then the graveyard's caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the crowd asks him if he has an explanation for the music.

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about" says the caretaker. "He's just decomposing!"

Happy Halloween

From ghoulies and ghosties

And long-leggedy beasties

And things that go bump in the night,

Good Lord, deliver us!

Amen.

La Ofrenda: All Saints Sunday and remembering those we love who are just beyond our horizon

This Sunday, November 1, is a major feast day on the Christian calendar -- All Saints Day.

All Saints Sunday has its origins in the ancient church when it was celebrated on the Saturday before Easter -- the day now called Holy Saturday when Jesus descends to hell to free everyone from the grip of death.

All Saints and All Souls days merged to become special masses for martyrs and those who had died anonymously. In later centuries, the day shifted into the weeks before Advent, and the day we now call "Halloween" is actually All Hallows Eve, or the even of All Souls Day.

This year we are continuing with a tradition we began last year from the part of the world where I come: La Ofrenda, a special table in the church where we display items representing people we love who have died. La Ofrenda is a major element of El Dia de los Muertos, Mexico's "Day of the Dead," and is popular in churches throughout California and the Southwest. I've seen many over the years and all of them are powerful.

This Sunday, please bring something that represents someone you love who has died; a photograph or a poem, or a candle or a paper flower. We will leave up our ofrendas until the first Sunday of Advent on November 29.

Last year our first Ofrenda was so popular we set up two more. Here are some photographs of Las Ofrendas at St. Paul's last year. I am told that we were the only Episcopal Church in Virginia with a Ofrendas, an honor I hope other churches might share with us this year.