Some days I don’t feel like I have anything important to say, and other days I feel like I could far surpass my allotted words for the day. What is that statistic again? Women need to speak like 10,000 words a day while men only need about 3,000? I don’t know, but it’s fairly accurate at the Nowell house. (And words like “go potty” and “don’t eat your boogers” don’t count.) Thank God for girlfriends!!!
Monday night Benny and I attended a fall festival with a ninja, a very pretty princess, and an adorable roaring lion. I’ll be posting pictures soon. It was fun as far as church festivals go. It was puzzling to me to see a giant balloon sculpture with the head of a scary devil in the main fellowship room where the festivities were underway. Why on earth would you have that at a party for little kids??? Idiots. Somehow (thankfully) Zoe didn’t see it. She would have freaked!
Halloween is always a fun topic this time of the year. (insert sarcastic cough) Like JettyBetty, I have long been a fence rider on the subject. I love the idea of children playing dress up and people giving each other treats, but trick-or-treating makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would you send your kids out in local neighborhoods to collect whatever total strangers want to give them? Any other night of the year you would think that’s insane, so why on Halloween do people all of a sudden trust their fellow man to do what is best for their children? It’s crazy. I’m not anti-Halloween, just anti-trick-or-treating…Unless you know the people whose house you’re getting treats from. I wonder what Jetty Betty was handing out? š Something tells me lots of chocolate. She’s sweet like that.
My discussion group for BSF discussed Halloween at our last fellowship. It seems that I alone liked Halloween. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I stand alone in my opinions. I do think it’s interesting what and how some Christians decide to take a stand on issues like this one. I wish we’d all take a huge stand against poverty and starvation like we do on holidays and whether or not it’s a sin to celebrate them. I think our good intentions are sometimes misplaced and look a little self-righteous and stupid to those who don’t belong to the club. As always, my finger pointing includes myself (remember there’s four fingers pointing back at me) I can’t believe I’ve wasted so much of my life missing the point. The pious, perfectionistic, high and mighty mask is scarier than any mask I saw Monday night.
Are you Pro? Anti? Or Indifferent? I’ll love you anyway. Just please people, think! The Halloween issue reminds me of the issue in the NT of whether or not it was o.k. to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
Romans 14 says this:
“Those who think it is all right to eat anything must not look down on those who won’t. And those who won’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them. Who are you to condemn God’s servants? They are responsible to the Lord, so let him tell them whether they are right or wrong. The Lord’s power will help them do as they should.” Romans 14:3-4, NLT
The meat wasn’t the issue, the condemning of other believers was. The celebrating of Halloween has been a divisive topic for so long. Can’t we all just get along? Why is it we feel the need to not only make sure others know what we believe, but then try to persuade everyone to join us in our camp? I love my BSF sisters in spite of their thinking I’m nuts, but I recognized an area that could have turned a lovely discussion quite ugly and I managed to keep my tongue in check, and not take things they said personally. The result? A harmonious lunch. Thank you and hold the onions.
Sometimes I Write 
I made a very similar journey as you this year–I am much more upset about poverty and hate than I am about Halloween. I don’t celebrate anything evil on Halloween–I celebrate imagination and the change of seasons. I know there are people that disagree with me and I have been trying to humor them for years. I still really do love them. I think most of them still love me, even though I had soooo much fun handing out a bunch of chocolate to my neighborhood friends on Monday night.
There just aren’t many things I am willing to divide over–Halloween doesn’t even come close to that important.
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You express my heart so well. I am thrilled to have another brain so similar to my own in another time zone. You waxed eloquently on a topic that has long frustrated me as well. I went out with my own knight, angel and black kitty cat, and we had a marvelous time with some friends from our old church. I completely agree with your perspective, friend. Have a great weekend!
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I don’t think you’re crazy Niki, wierd, but not crazy! I’m just kidding. I definately agree with you that sometimes Christians can be so picky about certain things and ignore other big issues, such as poverty. I’m guilty of it too. The last thing I want to do is go around telling people what they ought to believe. I’m always open if someone asks me about something…and I always want to examine it in light of God’s word. I agree with you about letting your kids get candy from strangers…not the brightest idea. I came to my own conclusion about Halloween when I began to learn about the occult, like we talked about, and when I learned how Halloween originated and the meanings behind alot of the activiites. It’s like the peace sign, it looks pretty harmless, don’t you think? But if you study how it came to be, you’ll find out the it originated out of rebellion to God, and is actually a broken cross. Kinda scary! Some may still think it’s harmless, but I think it dishonors my God. Another subtle way the enemy undermines Christ…but no matter how different Christians celebrate or don’t celebrate Halloween, it’s not our place to point fingers. We can share what we believe and why, with love. I love you anyway, too! I have been wanting to call, but my cell phone is officially dead-long story, and I’ve been having a hard time recovering from the oral surgery (I got dry socket in both of the bottom ones). You’re in my thoughts and prayers. Now that I’ve wrote a book for a comment…
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I obviously have my own opinion about Halloween…I’m for it! I love dressing up and I enjoyed dressing up my little one this year (he was a pumpkin).
I think all the hype about halloween being evil is from misinformation. Halloween was originally All Hallows Eve which is the day before All Saints Day. The premise behind dressing up was so that if evil spirits decided to attack the night before All Saints Day, they wouldn’t be able to identify you in costume. It has now become a harmless celebration of sugar.
I realize there are many people who have distorted it, and there are those who do use it as a night to worship Satan. I don’t think that precludes Christians from participating though. People who worship satan also wear black, and yet a lot of us choose to wear it as a slimming color, not to send an evil message.
I think a lot of our holidays are misunderstood. Such as Christmas. The Christmas tree was originally a pagan worhip ceremony worshiping the tree god. Easter eggs came about from the pagan ceremony worshipping Ishtar, who lost her son, and after 40 days of weeping, her son was rehatched from an egg. When the Roman empire converted from paganism to Catholicism, they simply changed pagan rituals from Christian, reassigning their meanings.
I’m not against Christmas trees or Easter egg hunts, but I don’t see Halloween as any more harmful than those holiday rituals either.
I also wanted to make one comment about the peace sign. I’ve heard it’s disrespectful, but I’ve also heard it’s honoring. It supposedly symbolizes the cross Peter died on, which was a broken arm cross.
I think the real issue is the heart and what we mean by it.
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I would like to make a comment on Jennifer’s blog. Oh wait, this is still Niki’s blog. Really, I enjoyed Jennifer’s history lesson. Good stuff.
What it all really comes down to is this: what would life be like without those sugery smushy pumpkins that we get to eat every year only at this time? I can’t stand the thought of life w/o them.
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