A Halloween Rant
Yup....can't wait for this month to be over. October depresses me every year. And if I'm not depressed, then I'm angry. Angry at the world I live in. And then angry at myself. Allow me to rant for just a little while. It's my blog and I can whine if I want to.
I know a lot of folks love Halloween. I used to. I enjoyed dressing up and trick-or-treating as a kid. My children have enjoyed their annual costumes (this is our first year without them - another sign that they're growing up) and fall festivals at the church. So I'm not knocking my friends and neighbors who are looking forward to some good clean fun tomorrow night.
What appalls me is the complete disregard for decency that some folks have regarding this particular holiday. For example, the "House of Torment" billboard on southbound Hwy 183 that my kids can't even look at. The first time I saw it, I felt physically ill, it was so graphic. Or how about the house in my neighborhood on my way to the grocery store that has more zombies and bloody skeletons coming up from their lawn than grass? Or the horror movie trailers that pop up on TV so regularly that I have keep my finger on the channel button to keep my kids from having nightmares.
The horror part of Halloween has been around forever, I know, but I remember having to go to a haunted house or someplace like that to get a good gross out or scare. For the more sensitive folks - like my son - who can't handle it, all you have to do is avoid the haunted house. But these days, I can't drive down the road without telling my kids when they can open their eyes. So I'm ready for the Halloween grossness to go away.
When did it become okay to be graphically obscene in public this time of year? When did Halloween lose the fun in favor of the frightful? Am I just more sensitive now that I'm a mom, or have things really gotten worse?
I don't have any solutions - just frustrations. It's the ugly side of the world my family and I live in and we're going to have to learn to cope somehow. But at this time of year, I wonder what God thinks as He looks down on our billboards, television programming and party stores. I wonder that He doesn't zap us all where we stand.
Truth be told, when it comes to the holiness of God, as ugly as some of the Halloween stuff is, we're not that much further away from Him than any other time of year. That is to say, we're so far away from God's holiness and perfection that this annual backslide is miniscule by comparison. The depravity of man is just more obvious to me in October. And I don't like it. Now that it's come to the surface and the store fronts, I can't avoid it. Perhaps a better response from me, then, is prayer. And so I pray for my city, my culture, my nation. I should be praying all of the time for these things, for God to forgive our ugliness and our fascination with all things not Him. But it's only at this time of year that I'm really bothered enough by it all to do it.
Hmmm....maybe that's the good thing about Halloween for me. A call to prayer that's too loud for me to ignore. A way to celebrate God's power this time of year by falling on His grace, forgiveness, and begging Him for transformation. And, as usual, all of that has to start with me. Lord, change me to be a willing intercessor for my culture that is so far from honoring You!
OK...rant over. What do you think about Halloween?
I know a lot of folks love Halloween. I used to. I enjoyed dressing up and trick-or-treating as a kid. My children have enjoyed their annual costumes (this is our first year without them - another sign that they're growing up) and fall festivals at the church. So I'm not knocking my friends and neighbors who are looking forward to some good clean fun tomorrow night.
What appalls me is the complete disregard for decency that some folks have regarding this particular holiday. For example, the "House of Torment" billboard on southbound Hwy 183 that my kids can't even look at. The first time I saw it, I felt physically ill, it was so graphic. Or how about the house in my neighborhood on my way to the grocery store that has more zombies and bloody skeletons coming up from their lawn than grass? Or the horror movie trailers that pop up on TV so regularly that I have keep my finger on the channel button to keep my kids from having nightmares.
The horror part of Halloween has been around forever, I know, but I remember having to go to a haunted house or someplace like that to get a good gross out or scare. For the more sensitive folks - like my son - who can't handle it, all you have to do is avoid the haunted house. But these days, I can't drive down the road without telling my kids when they can open their eyes. So I'm ready for the Halloween grossness to go away.
When did it become okay to be graphically obscene in public this time of year? When did Halloween lose the fun in favor of the frightful? Am I just more sensitive now that I'm a mom, or have things really gotten worse?
I don't have any solutions - just frustrations. It's the ugly side of the world my family and I live in and we're going to have to learn to cope somehow. But at this time of year, I wonder what God thinks as He looks down on our billboards, television programming and party stores. I wonder that He doesn't zap us all where we stand.
Truth be told, when it comes to the holiness of God, as ugly as some of the Halloween stuff is, we're not that much further away from Him than any other time of year. That is to say, we're so far away from God's holiness and perfection that this annual backslide is miniscule by comparison. The depravity of man is just more obvious to me in October. And I don't like it. Now that it's come to the surface and the store fronts, I can't avoid it. Perhaps a better response from me, then, is prayer. And so I pray for my city, my culture, my nation. I should be praying all of the time for these things, for God to forgive our ugliness and our fascination with all things not Him. But it's only at this time of year that I'm really bothered enough by it all to do it.
Hmmm....maybe that's the good thing about Halloween for me. A call to prayer that's too loud for me to ignore. A way to celebrate God's power this time of year by falling on His grace, forgiveness, and begging Him for transformation. And, as usual, all of that has to start with me. Lord, change me to be a willing intercessor for my culture that is so far from honoring You!
OK...rant over. What do you think about Halloween?
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