As I write this, I should be asleep in my warm bed, resting for the start of a new day. Instead, I'm sitting before the glowing screen of a computer while my cat knocks things from the table. It's a little trick he learned as a kitten to tell me that he wants to go outside. He has been rewarded with the sweet treat of what he wanted too often to convince him to stop now.

He's not going out this particular night, though. It is Halloween night, and he's a black cat. His mother gave him her black coat along with a stubborn determination to be an outdoor cat, a potentially fatal combination on this night of fun for children dressed like their worst nightmares.

For, you see, some of the ghouls lurking in the dark like to do more than ask for candy from their neighbors, and their kind of unfunny rituals may involve killing someone's plump little pet as a sacrifice to Satan on this unholy night, especially if it is a black cat. It has happened often enough that many humane societies won't adopt out a black cat right before Halloween for fear that the prospective new home may hold a far more sinister surprise than a bowl of kitty treats.

We wait the night hours away while he rubs his nose against a lamp shade, moaning his complaints, threatening to break another lamp among the items scattered on the floor. I should be outside, he frets. I'm a good boy. It's nice out there, with bugs to chase in my yard. I want to go play. Please, may I go outside to play?

No, you may not, you fat little fool. The bad guys might get you. I would like you to stay in where you would be a lot safer. The night is not particularly safe for cats, especially this night.

Why did we ever get the idea that it was safe fun for children to go out in scary costumes to extort candy from the neighbors? This ritual started when some demonically-inspired pagan priests would extort food and children for human sacrifices on this night. Terrified families would give both up for fear for the safety of the rest of the family, then wait the dark hours out with an newly emptied place by their hearth for the dawn to come. Perhaps both priests and the spirits would be appeased and the place would be filled again.

Every year the ritual went on, enforced by terror overcoming the love for the children and the desperate need for food until the light of Christianity drove the vile practice back into the shadows. The truth behind the carved vegetables and frightening costumes became a sugar-coated myth lingering on as a festival to let the children celebrate the harvest season with a bag full of candy playfully demanded from the neighbors. It is described as only harmless fun, a game of childhood decried only by dentists and killjoys. Thankfully, enough parents are waking up to the unfunny side of Halloween that it isn't nearly as popular as it used to be, with most children going to carefully planned and supervised parties.

So, I sit here typing away while my black cat yowls for his freedom, waiting for the dawn when hopefully it will be safe to let him out before he shreds the carpets. At least there is no empty place in our home this time. I contemplate him sprawled on the carpet next to me, washing his already clean toes to relax while he passes the time until his unpredictably stubborn humans decide to let him out again. He has no comprehension of the warnings issued to keep your pets inside this night, no matter how many years he has sat by the television when one is broadcast as a public service. The message is simply beyond his comprehension.

I wonder if we stubborn humans look like that to God. No matter how many times and how many ways He broadcasts His messages of danger and the sure way to safety in His loving arms, we keep right on wanting to go out into the darkness where danger lurks. Are we really as witless as this cat still softly fussing over his confinement? His only offense is that he happens to look like something that the mock demons want to abuse on this night for their own dark purposes. Our offense is that we look like the God that the real demons want to attack.

When will we ever learn to trust God and obey Him instead of flirting with danger for the sake of sweet treats obtained by trickery? Perhaps we may yet wake up to the civil war between God and our adversary Satan that underlies the real pagan festival still intruding in our lives in a yearly reminder of Satan's bloody demands.