Undead ahead

Signs that Hallowe'en is coming before we know it: I tuned into Catholic Radio the other day and the subject was zombies!

Someone called in and wanted to know if the current zombie craze, people running around dressed as zombies, were the work of the dark side.

My heart was heavy hearing that, I admit it. Last Hallowe'en I did a break from the Leonard Pennario beat to do a story for the paper on Buffalo's zombie community. We have a zombie community! All the better cities have them.

Here I am among the zombie undead. That is me on the right, taking notes! The zombies took this picture and Facebooked it to me. I am now Facebook friends with certain of the zombies.

And these zombies to my knowledge were upstanding and very kind citizens who dress up as zombies in their spare time and raise money for charity. Every October they put up a free haunted house for poor kids. I did not see anything wrong in that. Would the radio say I was wrong?

What about in Zumba class, every once in a while we do the Zombie Walk? Would I be told that was off limits like yoga?

In short ...

No!

God love these priests, they took a humorous view of the situation.

One of them gently told the caller, we are sometimes too quick to think something is the work of the devil. Obviously some things are the devil's work. (I can think of a few things off the top of my head.)

But as for zombies, he said, human beings have an age-old tendency to act out things we might be afraid of, things we do not know about. Look at kids playing cops and robbers, he said. And this is not harmful. It is human.

The zombies, exonerated!

The Zombie Walk, exonerated! Again may I express my love for a faith that frowns on yoga but has no problem with Zumba and the Zombie Walk. Catholicism rocks.

This will be a happy Hallowe'en!