My thoughts on Halloween

I have friends who go all out for Halloween and I know some who refuse to celebrate it.  It is that type of holiday. I am somewhere in-between those two extremes.  While some probably do celebrate it as a Spiritual Holiday (like I do Christmas), I feel most people only celebrate the fun of it just as most people celebrate the fun of Christmas.  After all, most people like to dress up and pretend to be someone or something else.  I know that I would be included in that group.

As a boy growing up, I always dressed up in costume (usually a hobo), and my parents and carried me to Riggs Circle in Mesquite to Trick or Treat.  After I got married and a family of my own, we let our kids get into costume and my wife carried them Trick or Treating ( I never could get off work in time to go).  Now my kids are doing the same.

Really as a person who spent most of his adult teaching the Bible, I really like this time of year.  It is the one time of year that people are receptive to talking about the supernatural.  I love the Halloween stories and figures within the Bible.  I miss teaching those stories.

Saul (King of Israel) does not get any answers to his prayers so he consults a medium and she summons the prophet Samuel from the grave and the ghost of Samuel talks to Saul about his coming doom and the death of his sons.

At the time of Exodus, there are magicians in Egypt who for a while, match the miracles of Moses tick for tack.

During the life of Jesus, there are demon processed people who are even more terrifying than the girl in "The Exorcist".  And don't get me started about Lazarus or all the dead people who leave their graves and walk back into Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' Death and Resurrection.  I could go on for hours about these stories and characters.

Yes, I also like the stories of Stephen King, Ted Dekker and others.  I grew up watching the classics:  Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf-man as well as Godzilla, King Kong, and others.   A good story or movie is good, and a good Halloweenish story is still a good story.

So have a good holiday my friends and watch out for any houses falling your way (especially if you are the Wicked Witch of the East).  ;-)

The coming darkness

I did the grandfather thing  this evening as we all went to a carnival.  It was a beautiful day even through the temperature was about 10 degrees below the average temperature for this time of year.  The sun was out and the time had come for it to be going down in the West.  The full moon had already come up and was sitting in the daylight in the East.  

I kept quiet after noticing that and when it was time for us to leave, I looked again.  The sun was just barely over the West horizon and was casting a beautiful hue across the western sky.  After gazing upon that for a second, I turn toward the East where the exit was and saw a sight that I have seen a few times before and it astonishes me each time that I see it.  The full moon was sitting higher in the sky than before and below it was a beautiful belt of a pinkish hue going horizontally across the eastern sky. The hue was separating the daylight from the coming darkness of night.  

I just stood there for a moment and kept my eyes upon the coming darkness.  It was coming toward us as an invading blitzkrieg conquering the land.  It would be just a few minutes until the darkness would overtake us all.  

As I was driving home, I kept monitoring the situation.  By then the darkness was upon us and already past the Moon.  No matter how hard the darkness tried though, it could never blot out the Moon.  The darkness tightened its grip upon our land, but the more that it engulfed us, the brighter the Moon became. 

As I viewed this phenomenon, I started thinking about life.  It reminded me that the darkness that overtakes all of us from time to time and brings sorrow and hardship into our lives also makes the love from others glow that much brighter.  The bleaker our situation, the brighter each good and kind deed stands out, just like the Moon in the darkness of night. 

Random thoughts from a late night sleep deprived mind

These next few thoughts may be from a couple of nights of insomnia, but I this is what I have been pondering.

If we can understand how to hate cancer or other terminal illnesses and love the victim of these diseases, then why is it that we can't understand this is how God feels about sin and all people.

A person can only give you true love when they are allowed not to love you at all,  it is only then that love is freely given.

Of every emotion that we process, none is as powerful as love.

Our need for privacy is part of the curse and not the cure.

When Jesus described the Kingdom of Heaven, He described it as a celebration with food, drink, loud music, & dancing.

When we have the ability to acknowledge ourselves and to laugh at ourselves, we remove any pleasure that certain others may get from making fun of us.

Escapism can be an attempt to return to life in Eden, even if is it only in our imaginations.

A person grows best when they are allowed to fail.

There is an indescribable joy that comes when another person asks you to come with them as they step past their fears to experience and grow by doing something new.

There is also an indescribable joy that comes when someone-else comes with you as you step past your fears to experience and grow by doing something new.