Why I Don't Celebrate Halloween

Fall is my very favorite season.  I love the colors, cooler temperatures, the mountains, and the feeling of the air. I love pulling out favorite sweaters, and wearing cute boots. I adore being able to cook hearty soups, and bake bread, and I just love the harvest foods, and abundance of it all.  I love decorating my house with pretty squashes, colored leaves, and fall flowers. I think there is little prettier than a field of pumpkins with all the leaves gone, and brown, and just the beautiful squash ready to store for winter.

But every year I hesitate before buying pumpkins to fill with potted mums because it means decorating with a pumpkin, and people think it means I am making jack-o-lanterns. I am not. Not because I don't like pumpkins, as I clearly do, but because it is so important to me to live my faith, and to never, ever leave room for confusion in anyone's mind what I believe and that I believe it to my core.

Phil 4: 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

I find it completely impossible to read this passage, and the many others like it, and reconcile celebrating a holiday that has nothing to do with nobility, purity, loveliness or praiseworthiness. Halloween is filled to the brim with darkness, violence, fear, and death. I know the history of it, and have read all the fear mongering books which contain truths as well. I also know that Samhain is a big holiday among witches and Wiccans. It is a pagan holy day, similar to how I feel about Resurrection Sunday which I also don't call Easter for the same reasons.

It is not a Christian holiday and I have heard all of the arguments: We can reclaim it for Christ. What? How do you claim death, violence, darkness, and a pagan holy day for Christ if there is nothing there to claim it for? Easter is a good example of what I mean here. I do not celebrate the pagan holiday for Oestre. I celebrate the resurrection of my Savior. Christmas is another. I do not celebrate Yule. I celebrate the birth of my Savior. Who cares if the days are near each other? Since no one knows when Christ was born it doesn't matter to me if we celebrate it mid winter or mid spring. We do know when He was resurrected.

Halloween just does not have anything to redeem or anything to celebrate. As a Christian I should be celebrating life, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, purity, love, truth, nobility, and light. I don't find any of that in Halloween.

We have a big drawer full of costumes, and in fact we have costume parties as often as we can get away with it!  I have no problem with kids eating candy now and then, and I certainly don't have a problem with fall fun, corn mazes, bobbing for apples, ginger snaps and apple cider, or with dressing up for fun.

I have a big problem with dressing up on October 31st.  I want to make it crystal clear who we are, and what we believe and if I can just choose to compromise it for the sake of my kids being given a bagful of candy, then it must not mean much to me to begin with.  How would anyone ever know the difference between Jesus and the rest of the world if there isn't a difference?

I never want to think I made that compromise for the sake of doing what everyone else is doing, because parts of it are frankly fun.  I know most don't agree with me here.  I wrote this because I decided I don't care who disagrees and I don't care who writes nasty things to me to defend celebrating Halloween.  Do whatever you want to as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.  Joshua 24:15

I am about to talk about a taboo topic. Yes I am.

Topics open for discussion go through trends I have noticed.  Back in the late 70's it was suddenly okay to talk about girls getting sexually abused, too late for my sister, it turns out, who had to hide the fact that the school custodian sexually molested her for 2 years in the boiler room.  Then in the 80's it was okay to talk about boys getting molested as well.  Too late for a few who had already had to hide their shame of being abused by someone else.

It got to be okay to talk about being gay, and then after the movie The Burning Bed women could finally get help when they were being beaten up by their husbands.  Breast cancer can be discussed openly and without shame, and we can talk about suicide and find ways to prevent tragedy instead of families suffering with the shame of someone else's actions again.  We used to hide alcoholism in families and not talk about it, and children were embarrassed by a drunken parent instead of being able to ask for and get help.

But, there is one thing we never talk about.  Never.  So I am taking a deep breath and plunging in anyway.  All of the victims I listed above...it was not their fault.  And yet those who were first to speak out had to overcome deep and profound shame by being victimized.  I  personally know some victims of the abuse I want to discuss, but, I won't give you their names, because just as before, it takes time for it to be accepted enough to not be embarrassed by being a victim.  And frankly it is dangerous for them.

It is domestic violence against men.  Husbands who are being beaten and hurt on a regular basis by their wives.  Men who suffer in silence because it is not *manly* to admit a girl beat you up, even if that girl weighs 200 lbs and you have been taught your whole life to not hit a girl.  Ever.  Men who, in self-defense, end up with battery charges against them because she presses charges when he has to get her off of him or face even death.  Men who have scars, black eyes, bruises, and broken bones, but suffer in silence because no one believes them when they do tiptoe in and try to talk about it.

The statistics are shocking.  1 in 10 men has suffered serious physical abuse by a live-in partner on a regular basis, and more than 1 in 4 (28,5%) at some point in their lives.   There are no well known programs, no doctors who ask at visits, no brochures placed in bathrooms, no ad campaign to educate victims on how to get help.  Men go to work and no one knows that the night before he was beaten and his life threatened.

                                

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline,  aside from the beatings other signs of abuse include:

• Telling you that you can never do anything right
• Showing jealousy of your friends and time spent away
• Keeping you or discouraging you from seeing friends or family members
• Embarrassing or shaming you with put-downs
• Controlling every penny spent in the household
• Taking your money or refusing to give you money for expenses
• Looking at you or acting in ways that scare you
• Controlling who you see, where you go, or what you do
• Preventing you from making your own decisions
• Telling you that you are a bad parent or threatening to harm or take away your children
• Preventing you from working or attending school
• Destroying your property or threatening to hurt or kill your pets
• Intimidating you with guns, knives or other weapons
• Pressuring you to have sex when you don’t want to or do things sexually you’re not comfortable with
• Pressuring you to use drugs or alcohol

Typically the abuser uses any means possible to isolate the victim from his (or her) support system, but in the case of men, our society does much of the secret-keeping for the abuser by making it so shameful for a man to admit or have anyone believe.  Do not be deceived.  It is not just a low income problem or a problem in drug communities.  It is not just a problem for other people.  I promise you, that right now, this very minute, you know a man who is a victim, and needs help.  If he leaves it is likely that the charges she has filed against him will prevent him from getting custody of his children who then would be left with an abusive mother.  Maybe she doesn't abuse them and takes all her anger out on him.  But...can he count on that, knowing what she is capable of?  Would you?  So he stays.  His life is a nightmare and he can't wake up.

We need to talk about this.  We need to be more aware and make others more aware.

We need to end the silence so we can end the nightmare.

If you need help call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233
www.thehotline.org

                               

I Am a Christian Feminist, and it is NOT a Contradiction in Terms

Is it coming out of the closet to admit I am a feminist and a totally sold-out born again Christian?  I kind of feel like maybe I need to find a Pride event to march in if I am going to publicly admit I am a feminist.  I do like rainbows...can I use that symbol too?  Deep breath...here goes:  I am a radical feminist.

Oh trust me, I was in the anti-woman closet for a long time before I admitted what I really am.  I spent years pretending that women were second class citizens to men, and trying to pretend to not being very smart in case I threatened a man so much I might not get married, and trying to make sure that I never had an opinion or an original thought.  I did try to concede to being born not quite as good, but still pretty good, if I didn't want to achieve very much or be as important.  I remember as a child being told to not let men know how smart I was one day and the next being told I could be anything I wanted to be, as long as it wasn't something like a doctor, lawyer, or president, because, well of course those were only men's jobs.  I should never aspire to being a CEO or a business owner.  Oh!  Ooops!

When I was a waitress I consistently made 20% less than the male waiters. When I was in college I was told by my math professor that I got lucky to get a good grade.  When I was in high school I tried so hard to pretend I didn't know or let alone use all those big words.  I tried not to care too much if the guys I dated were as smart as me, because it didn't matter, as long as I never let them know how smart I am. And the entire time I squashed down all of my natural God-given gifts of leadership because...well...I am a girl after all so that could not be what God actually gave me.  I must need to continue to search for my real gifts.

In 1991 I married my husband Pete.  Guess what he liked the very best about me?  He actually liked that I am really smart!  He liked it when I knew things he didn't, and he values me for being really capable.  He supports me in being strong, intelligent, independent, and even a leader.  He made me bloom and showed me the truth about myself.

Guess what?  I got to choose to have babies, and wear lace, and be feminine and build a national company too!  I get to have him support me in doing the things I am good at, and I get to support him doing the things he is good at.  He doesn't see me as a girl.  He sees me as a person uniquely created by God to do important things.

More than that, God sees women that way!  I was brought up to believe that women were lesser and that we must have a man to be complete, and that only men can be leaders.  I was taught that women must submit to men to the degree that whatever I thought was completely irrelevant and that only a man's opinion mattered.  I have seen women abused, dismissed, and shamed by the Christian church because they dared to think or have an opinion.  More than that, it wasn't always the men who did so.  The women themselves keep each other in place, by saying that there is only one way to be, and it is submissive, subservient and subjected.  I knew that God created me to be one way, and I never understood how He could create me this way with these gifts only to waste them by making only men able to be what I am.

Jesus saw women very differently than our present Christian culture and tradition claims.  He valued women, and saw them as important members of His church; leaders with and alongside men.  God appointed Deborah in the old testament to lead the nation as both a spiritual and temporal leader.

I am a pastor and a teacher.  Not because I am ordained but because that is what God made me.  I lead and guide people in my sphere of influence because I am a natural leader, and because God gave me those gifts.  We, as human beings, can only thrive when we are allowed to be who we truly are, and what we are innately and originally created to be.

I am thriving as a fully out of the closet Christian Feminist, and I teach my daughters to be everything they were created by God to be.  No matter what that is.

Even me.

Truth is....

Yesterday I wrote about Love.  Jesus said He is Love in John.  He also said He is Truth, so I wanted to define what Truth is, and what it is not.  I have been the victim of a lot of slander and lies over the years, and have had to explain to my kids a lot about lies, and truth.  I explain it to them like this:

If I point to that stop sign across the street, and ask you what color it is, what would you say?  Of course it is red.  Would it matter to you if someone called that color green?  Does it change the color of the stop sign?  What if that person convinced a whole lot of other people that the sign was green?  Does that change the color of the sign?  The truth is that the sign is red, and nothing anyone says or believes can change that truth.  The Truth just IS, the same as God says He is the I Am.  

Jesus; God, is Truth.  What can we learn about the nature of God from knowing about Truth?

Truth is:

• Unchanging
• Absolute
• Undeniable
• Constant
• Reliable
• Fact
• Exclusive
• It exists only as itself.

Truth is not:

• Variable
• Subjective
• Capricious
• Changeable
• Invisible
• Subject to either belief or disbelief
• Open to opinion 

As a descriptor of God, I feel very safe and secure knowing that this is Who He is. 

I also love that no matter what lies are told or who believes them, the Truth is still the Truth, and cannot be changed.  I can live with that.

So God is Love eh? What does THAT mean?

I have heard it and so have you.  God is Love.  Okay...I accept that, and it is true and Biblical.  1 John 4:8 says God IS love. What's more is that literally everyone understands it on a visceral level.  We, as humans, just know that it is true.  But what does it really mean?  Does it mean that God just hands out blessings to us like candy?  Does it mean that His will always feels warm and fuzzy because, well, it is *love* right and love always feels good?  We all know that love is not always warm and fuzzy, especially if as parents we have had to love our kids by giving them consequences.  We also might know that, as a friend we sometimes have to say hard things to love someone.  It is not always so much fun to love or be loved.

So what IS love and what does it mean to love?

I think almost every wedding I have ever been to quotes from 1 Cor 13.  It is ubiquitous and I thought it was talking about, well, you know...love.  Like, how should the newly married couple behave, and how should I feel about my husband and kids, and how should I treat my neighbor...love.

I think now that is part of it, but, I also believe that it is a chapter describing God the Father who we already saw IS love.

Let's look at what 1 Cor 13 (the love chapter) says God is by substituting the word God for the word Love:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have God, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have God, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have God, I gain nothing.

⁴ God is patient, God is kind. (He) does not envy, (He) does not boast, (He) is not proud. ⁵ (He) does not dishonor others, (He) is not self-seeking, (He) is not easily angered, (He) keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ (He) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ God never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part,¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and God. But the greatest of these is God."

Oh what a difference that makes in helping me know God better!  I see so clearly now how He loves me.  Not with fake promises but with the real stuff that makes me know I am safe and cared for, and held to a standard of behavior, but done in such a way that it is perfect LOVE!

I am loved and His child, whom He loves.  Wow.

My Sandbox Was Bought with Blood Money, and So Was Yours

The crime rate in America was just skyrocketing through the 60s 70s and 80s.  Experts were predicting that we were headed to universal bars on the windows, and even martial law, let alone the expenses and economic disaster of trying to manage such a large prison population.  Had the crime rate continued the way it was, we were looking at a police state and total anarchy by now.

But then in the early 90s something strange happened.  The crime rate began to fall, and has continued to drop since then.  Gang activity has dropped, and car theft, rape, murder, it seems all of it, across the board.  Amazing right?  It seems that as a society we have finally managed to sort out our problems and really get to the root of our collective problem.  It was probably education and the war on drugs that did the trick.  Right?

Nope.  In fact per capita drug use has remained roughly the same and addiction is still a major problem, with well over 90% of prisoners in America incarcerated either directly or indirectly due to drugs.  So, what happened?  How did we manage this incredible feat? 

We decided to kill the criminals before they decided to commit the crime!  How brilliant is that?  Yes.  Really.  Did you know that was the law in America?  Well of course, it isn’t written exactly like that.  I mean…there would probably be a massive uprising if we wrote a law saying we should kill as many potential criminals as possible before they could commit a crime.  That would be, just, barbaric!  Right?  Yeah.  Barbaric.

Yeah….barbaric.

But we are, and we have been for 40 years now, which is why we are enjoying a greatly reduced crime rate.  In 1973 abortion was legalized, and there are all sorts of reasons why I oppose abortion, but this one has just nagged at me for a few years now.  I read the book Freakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt , and they discussed all the demographics and statistics connecting the dropping crime rate and showing how it is a direct correlation to abortion.  In essence, the very same people who would be most likely to have an abortion are also the people most likely to raise criminal children who then become criminal adults.  So the abortion industry clearly targets the young, ethnic, unmarried, poor girls and kills their children which then prevents them from growing up in a single parent household with no father and in poverty, which is the same demographic most likely to join in gang activity, and criminal behavior.  

We killed them before they could kill us.  How clever we are.  How progressive and civilized.

My problem now is that I actually enjoy taking my kids to the park without being afraid, and I like not having my car stolen.  I abhor what is happening and can’t escape the benefits to me.  Should I not enjoy the park knowing the price that was paid for my clean and safe sand box and expanse of lush lawn?  That safety was bought with blood money.  It has caused me a lot of cognitive dissonance, and a sense of shame.

I can’t offer a solution to my problem.  I am merely extending and invitation to you to join me in my quandary.

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 An infinite midsummer’s night

Glass after glass of cold water

Ever so gently passed my way.

No slaking; never!

The immensity of the thirst of pain and shock and disbelief

One hand then another, and still

Not perceiving the enormity

Of that infinite instant.

Scents; flickers of a retained memory.

Hands. 

Sensing, seeing  a  vapor

Disperse.  Dissolve.  Depart.

But not with my eyes.

I held a butterfly

No more.

Unseen

Unseen

I can’t talk to you. Though
I really want to. I want to tell you about
The meaning of life.
The meaning of your life
And the meaning of mine.
I want you to know all of the things that you dream for
And wish for
And long for
And want without acknowledgement
Are real
That I once was you
Locked in a life that could not
Would not
Should not ever satisfy
The want is too deep for what can be found
In a bar
Or a bottle
or what can be found within either.
I want to tell you the truth that
You think you don’t want to hear.
Your mind is open to all but closing
And it is in the closing that freedom
Resides.
And flies
And silences cries.
I want to offer you the way to the closed
But I wait
Until you see that which
Unseen becomes everything.