U-G-L-Y You Ain't Got No Alibi, You Ugly, What-What, You Ugly!

 Looking back on high school, there are a lot of things that were fun at fifteen, that don’t make a lot of sense at 50. Most thoughts like this have to do with my choices of clothing and hairstyles, but sometimes these oddities are more communal than personal. At football and basket ball games the student section would engage in various chants that were meant to intimidate or mock our opponents. Usually those chants had something to do with how our team was better than your team, totally reasonable in that context, but there was another chant that, to this day, I have know idea what it meant, but it was fun to shout with a crowd of two hundred of your friends and classmates.

U-G-L-Y you ain’t got no alibi, you ugly, what, what, you ugly.

Like I said, some things from adolescence don’t make sense in later stage adulthood. I don’t know where it came from or what it meant, but it was meant to lift our spirits and unite “us” against “them” and let the other side know we aren’t intimidated by you, in fact, we are mocking you. I though of that chant recently, oddly enough, while walking around a neighborhood with my entire family trick or treating with the grandchildren. 

Sometimes situation and location combines to trigger long forgotten memories, and that was the case on this night. Four generations of Brittons (my parents, Honey and I, our children and our grandchildren) were walking around the neighborhood surrounding the church where I grew up, where I later was the preacher, and where currently my son is now the preacher. We passed by houses where old friends and church members once lived, houses where tragedy and violence that shook our community took place, houses once occupied by high school friends, houses currently occupied by high school friends, houses where I had my first kiss in 8th grade and houses where I was physically thrown out of at 16 (another story for another day). I was navigating all this nostalgia when my three year old grandson saw a rather intimidating person in a horror mask and commented to me, “Gumbo he’s ugly.”

In the midst of trying to comfort and reassure him that it was just a mask and a costume, the old chant began to ricochet around my brain. After a few dozen trips around my mind, another chant began to find a rhythm in my head. 

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Death where is your victory?

Grave where is your sting?

This chant goes back much further than my childhood, but that was when I first learned it. It was written by the apostle Paul nearly 2,000 years ago while helping frightened young Christians understand that the world had changed. The looming, lurking, darkness that surrounded death and instilled fear in the hearts of every man was no longer necessary. With the arrival of Jesus and His resurrection from the dead, everything had changed. The momentum had shifted in the game and we won. There was no longer a reason for us to be afraid or intimidated by death, in fact, we are now able to mock it because we have victory through Jesus.

Historically, that is a lot of what Halloween had been about for Christians. It was a night where dark and scary things were mocked collectively, communally, as a way of uniting us (children of light) against them (dark and deathly things). On this particular night, my entire family was participating in our own replication of this ancient ritual. Amidst the costumes and the candy, laughing with family and talking with neighbors, we were declaring we will not live our lives paralyzed by scary things. We were standing together, walking hand in hand with children, many of whom were adorned in costumes that were caricatures of those scary things. It was a perfect night, like a Hallmark movie come to life, but there was also a nagging dread that was faintly calling out from the darkest recesses of both our minds. 

Despite the fact that he loves candy, and he loves dressing up in the costumes of his heroes, my three year old grandson — whom I affectionately call Rougaroux — was not so enthusiastic about the “scary” costumes that were also roaming the streets. On numerous occasions he was completely distracted by the older kids towering over him in monstrous masks as the day faded into darkness. Sensing his trepidation, I repeatedly whispered to him, “It’s just a costume, it’s not really a monster, it can’t really hurt you, and I’m right here to protect you.”

As I walked through neighborhoods and nostalgia,  I was holding Rougaroux’s left hand, and my daddy was holding his right hand, when those scary thoughts began to creep into my mind. “Your time with your daddy is rapidly growing shorter.” These intrusive and unwelcome thoughts were scary because I know they were true. In the last five years he’s had an abdominal aortic aneurysm repaired, had a heart attack, had bladder cancer, and been diagnosed with COPD. Earlier that day he had been working with my son cutting up fallen trees and repairing fences, when he fell and got hurt — not bad enough for a hospital, but bad enough for a man his age and in his condition. Add to this the fact that the day before I’d gotten word that a friend of ours had lost her father. In that moment of bliss, mingled with the celebration of the season, I couldn’t help but be afraid that this might be the last year for something like this. 

That’s when my heart felt someone take my other hand and draw near beside me. Whispering over the fear calling from deep in my mind, was the voice of my Father. The words I was whispering to my grandson were merely an echo of the words He was whispering to me. “This isn’t a monster, it’s fear in a costume. Don’t look at the mask, look at what is beneath it — me, my love, my comfort and my peace. It can’t hurt you and I’m right here to protect you.”