We have mentioned before how odd it is that we have a First Presidency Christmas Devotional but not an Easter Devotional. We frankly believe that we shouldn’t stop there. We believe there should also be a First Presidency Halloween Devotional.

We have a desire to see President Russel M. Nelson dressed in a cape and tuxedo á la Bela Lugosi in the 1931 Dracula, affecting an exaggerated Transylvanian accent while sporting a pair of fake pointed teeth. We wish to see Dallin H. Oaks in green make-up, a flat, black toupee upon his dome, and fake bolts upon his neck while he grunts his talk like the 1931 Frankenstein. We hope to see Henry B. Eyering wrapped from head to toe in medical-gauze like an Egyptian mummy, sharing the gospel principles to be gleaned from It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

We wish to hear the Tabernacle Choir perform stirring renditions of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” the theme to “Beatlejuice,” selections from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and for the organist to perform a solo of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. We have many desires to see the General Conference Center decked out in cotton spider-webs, Styrofoam gravestones, plastic bats, and fresh carved Jack-O-Lanterns galore. We wish the sisters in the choir to be dressed in witches’ hats, and the brethren in skeleton jumpsuits.

We respectfully request this spectacle in part because it would take literally the Savior’s admonition to “become as little children.” It would also set an example for humility, in not taking ourselves or even our leaders so gosh-darn seriously, such that we might then take the things that actually matter much more seriously.

Perhaps more importantly, such a Devotional would highlight the fact that, beneath all the kitsch and the costuming, we really do believe in life after death, the Spirit World, the thinness of the veil, in the resurrection of the dead (which the zombie mythos but feebly re-enacts), in the persistence and existence of ghosts, which in the final tally are indeed the spirits of our loved ones existing far closer to us than we realize. That which Pop-Culture ignorantly worships, declare we unto you.

Talks on Temple Work, the Spirit of Elijah, Genealogy and Family History, and Missionary Work in the Spirit World, would not be out of place in such a Devotional, would be right at home in such a context. “Death where is thy sting” would be the theme, as we openly mock the supposed reality of death via our campiest and silliest costumes. It would be an affirmation of not only our faith, not only of our divinity, but also of our humanity!

Would the evangelicals claim us to be devils incarnate after such a Devotional? They already do so, and we shouldn’t be associating with them in the first place. It was the Pharisees, recall, who called for decorum; it was Christ who said the rocks themselves would cry out. His first miracle, recall, was turning the water to wine; that implies a divine affirmation for the need to party, that Halloween represents.

Brigham Young, amidst the early Saints’ most dire persecutions, would clear the main floor of the Nauvoo Temple and host a dance party. It is time we revive and restore that inspired practice. A First Presidency Halloween Devotional would be a great place to begin it again.

We started this essay only half-facetiously calling for a First Presidency Halloween Devotional. However, as we’ve progressed, our facetiousness has disappeared, and now we desire it openly and sincerely. Let us obey the Savior’s command to be as little children, and believe in the literal existence of ghosts and the return of the dead, and practice radical, United Order-esque generosity with the trick-or-treaters, as we grant them sweets the same way our Heavenly Father grants us salvation freely, “without money and without price,” and have a Happy Halloween!