HALLOW-een

Our kids are ages 4 and 2 and they went bezerk over the joy of halloween. They liked the candy of course, but more than that was the dressing up and the sense of a city-wide party. I know that a lot of Christians object to the holiday and a friend told me they didn't let their kids participate because it is not Christian. When I heard that it made me sad, because I found so many ways that the CEO spoke to us through it. I am so thankful first of all to the Spirit for even giving me inspiring ideas, because He is the one who helps me guide our children to ways of truly living. Our family's philosophy is to be "in the world, but not of it" and the sad thing is that many Christians do not realize that most modern day "christian" traditions are rooted in the pagan Greek realm of dealings in a court setting (see Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola). So if we are going to protest pagan roots, the first place we need to start looking is at our own church organizations and evaluate them first. But I am not here to condemn how others may feel about it. We are all different and that is part of the beauty of the body of Christ. But we did glean a ton this year by going out and joining in the fun.

First of all, we got to meet a new neighbor who had moved in on our street. Then there is the sharing. Kids were giving my young children their own candy before we had left our own sidewalk. My kids were also excited to give, share and meet others- but were indeed frightened by the "scary people in costumes". They kept asking me at each house if they were "good guys". And AO#2 kept saying "he looks different". Thus we were able to have a great talk about being kind and not frightened of people who are different from us, who look or talk different- that the inside is what counts. The person may have looked aweful, but he was generous, giving and kind- which is more important than looks. We also talked about spirits and the Holy Spirit as well as death and how we don't have to fear that either. It is one of the few times that people open their doors and at least say "hi" and share something with a perfect stranger. Yeah, I'm not crazy about all the gore and horror of it, but there are kids in the world who see much worse than a costume, they are living in the horrors of war and real injuries, real terror, real death and it's important not to shy away from the ugliness, but to teach our children to be courageous, loving, accepting of others who are different and giving.

I think many times followers of the Lover shy away from the world because of differences, but so often these differences can lead us smack dab into the heart of the gospel, into spiritual matters, open communication, discovery and reality.