John Cowart, Coffin Maker

Saturday afternoon I spent in a dumpster.

Behind an appliance store I fished for a large sheet of cardboard, the flattened box a washing machine or refrigerator had come in. Of course the large sheet I needed lay in the bottom of the tall dumpster and I had to drag over a wooden pallet to use as a ladder to climb over the top then use my cane to hook the cardboard being careful not to bring out anything I would not want to fish out.

I wanted the cardboard to make our front yard Halloween display. Ginny and I give out a special packet of candy and goodies to trick-or-treaters each year; these packets include evangelist tracts which are the only reason we bother with Halloween at all. We try to make the goodie packet we hand out the nicest treat the kids will get anywhere. They include candy, flying frogs, dinosaur models, color books, spider rings, whistles, and such stuff as well as the religious comic books.

Back on October 19^th, my posting explained the noose problem in our traditional display and how we want to avoid offending our neighbors.

Since this year, we don’t feel comfortable using the gallows and noose that we’ve used in years past, we faced a dilemma over how to illustrate some positive Scriptural thought in our front yard Halloween display.

I thought of I Thessalonians 4:16, “The dead in Christ Shall rise first” but I could not think of a way to illustrate that verse in a display.

Same thing’s true of Ezekiel 18:20, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die”.

And how would I make a yard display illustrating Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”?

None of those Scripture verses seemed right for our front yard.

But then I thought of a fun thing for the kiddies.

I suggested to Ginny that we build a merry-go-round for the skeleton to ride. The kids could spin it and read that happy verse from Ezekiel, “Turn ye, turn ye … for why will ye die”?

I thought that display would be cool but Ginny nixed that one.

The photo shows her beneath our just-beginning-to-bloom Cassia Tree as she helped set up our yard display. Her shirt says, I Only Look Sweet And Innocent!

How true. How true.

Anyhow, Saturday I prowled the dumpster, retrieved the cardboard, and fashioned a coffin for our display skeleton to welcome trick-or-treaters and to remind them of the Bible verse we hear recited at practically every funeral:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me”.

I hope our new display carries over our theme from previous years’ without spooking neighbors.

P.S: Those are pineapple plants anchoring the coffin in the Valley Of The Shadow Of Death.