2009-10-20 12:48:02

HALLOWEEN: ONE MAN’S TRICK IS ANOTHER MAN’S TREAT

Filed under: Halloween, politics
Posted by: John

I’m one of those awful people. October 31 is my favorite holiday.

All month long, or  whenever I can catch a moment, I watch scary movies. With my family, I love to pick out pumpkins and carve them. I enjoy having bags of candy in the house and not feeling guilty about it. I wait in suspense to find out who–or what–my son wants to be for the holiday. I get a special delight out of reading a story by Lovecraft or M.R. James or Poe.

On a perfect autumn evening, with leaves drifting down, candles flickering in windows and a soft wind soughing through branches, I like to sit on the porch and absorb the spooky loveliness of a New England  Halloween.

This man, Ray Gano, writing for something called the Right Side News, feels very, very differently. Here’s an excerpt:

Well it is that time of the year again… Halloween. But what gets me is that I am amazed at how many Christians celebrate it in one form or another. People justify it by calling it innocent fun, or even go as far as “Christianizing” it by having a “Fall Harvest Festival” or dressing up kids in your favorite biblical character. But when the rubber meets the road, this is Satan’s high holy day. Folks, If you are a christian, you know that too. There is no claiming ignorance on this one. So being a Christian, why are you even dabbling in celebrating this day at all? Scripture says…

Romans 12:2 (KJV) “and be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Christ suffered and died for our sins, he gave his all. It is our reasonable service to live a life holy and acceptable unto Him.

Let me ask all of you this…

How many of you have prominent pictures of old girlfriends or boyfriends in your house?

How many of you call up your old boyfriends or girlfriends on your “dating” anniversary?

Do any of you celebrate anything dealing with an old flame at all?

Odds are that you do not. In fact your significant other would be rather upset if you did and would be down right hurt and brokenhearted.

Let me ask you this…

Why are we celebrating a holiday dedicated to our enemy no matter what we call it or how we justify it?

What people are doing when they celebrate the enemies / world’s holidays is committing spiritual adultery.

Spiritual adultery sounds kind of fun to me, but he doesn’t see it that way.

Why am I posting his thoughts? Because they are a window into another sensibility, one that I find endlessly frustrating and always fascinating.

Comments (4)

4 Comments »

1. Christian guilty of enjoying Halloween, right here. I’ve been eating Count Chocula for breakfast (and will be buying FrankenBerry tonight). I’m teaching Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” and The Cask of Amontillado” next week, as well as Penelope Fitzgerald’s spooky “The Axe” and Sexton’s spooky sexy “Her Kind.” It’s not my favorite holiday, by any means — nothing compares to the beauty and pageantry of Christmas and Easter liturgies — but there is a devil in all of us, and while we needn’t indulge him, we should never pretend he isn’t there. Perhaps I’ll read some MR James next week, too…

   Comment by Jason Cooper — October 21, 2009 @ 10:38 am

2. I’m always fascinated by the narrowness of a human being. Why does one man see Halloween as playing with the devil, while another sees it as playing with the joyful child nature inside us all???
   It’s wonderful having free thought isn’t it??

   Halloween for me is Kid Spirit. Who do you want to be? For one night, you have permission to be any-THING! What an experiment intop the human experience.Want to be a dog, a cat, a sexy vampire, a blind person, a hot dog,
   a President, a historical dead person, a tree, a planet???? It doesn’t matter.
   You have full permission.

   I love that. And you are given sweets for whomever you are. No discrimination.

   My prayer is that every human can be in touch with their Kid Spirit – the joy they felt when they get creative, the innocence they felt when they dressed as someone they’re not, the laughter they enjoyed as others viewed their experiment..

   Here’s to many Halloweens..and Spiritual Freedom, nor adultery. I’ve never been a devil… maybe that would be an interesting spiritual experience..

   Comment by Scott Gelfand — October 21, 2009 @ 3:27 pm

3. Even if Satan does exist as some evil entity out there, would he really need a holiday in order to get to people?

   I can just see him now all dressed up in his red robes with his horns, wanting to take over the minds and souls of man, but … oh wait … It’s not October 31st yet.. when those naive Christians let down their guard and dress up as him with their evil family & community events, sharing sugar candy with each other… Ah yes, then, I will strike! But not a moment sooner…

   Spiritual adultery. Lol. That gave me a good chuckle.

   Comment by Darla Brown — October 22, 2009 @ 1:35 pm

4. Thanks for all these great posts. Halloween has become an unavoidable cultural event, no matter what you think of it. Once upon a time, I think it was almost a throwaway, a night for the kids to kill time between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. No more.

   When I lived in Germany, where the holiday wasn’t traditionally celebrated unless you were in a heavily Catholic region, Halloween was just starting to take off, and there was a lot of handwringing about the Americanization of the culture. As far as I know, it is now a fixture on the calendar in both France and Germany.

   Seems like there is a lot of intrinsic power in the few elements that make up Halloween: religion, sugar, kids, disguise.

   Comment by John — October 22, 2009 @ 2:33 pm

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