Why Halloween is Not My Friend

Never in my life have I gone trick-or-treating. The only time I ever resented that was when I was in 8th grade and all my friends were going and I wasn't allowed to join. (So unfair.)

That's because, my entire life, my family didn't celebrate Halloween.

Now, before you go feeling sorry for me and my deprived childhood, please know that my parents took care to not be the "grinches of Halloween." My sister and I weren't allowed to attend class Halloween parties at school, so instead, my mom, who was actually a teacher at my elementary school I attended, would get a substitute teacher and take my sister and I out someplace fun that was not related to Halloween. We would see a movie or go to the local indoor playground, and I never felt like I was missing out on anything. Also, we still passed out candy on Beggar's Night, and it was fun seeing all the other kids' costumes.

We also usually had an abundance of candy year-round.

I feel like I had to ask my mom every year why our family didn't celebrate Halloween. Even though I started disliking this time of year by the time I high school, I couldn't fully explain why I was personally against Halloween until now. Here is my argument about why I don't like Halloween, based solely on my own thoughts, the Bible, and unbiased sources.

1. Theme of death

All around there are skeletons, ghosts, mummies, zombies, and blood. Frankly, I don't see how all these dead things glorify the God of Life in any way.

Genesis 2:7 "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

John 11:43-44 "When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'"

John 1:4 "In [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of all mankind."

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Revelation 1:18 "I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!"

2. Theme of fear

Many decorations, costumes, and traditions surrounding Halloween attempt to instill a sense of fear. Haunted houses, decorations of spiders in faux cobwebs, monsters, horror movies, and all the death-related items listed above, to name a few. I truly believe that fear is completely of the devil.

2 Timothy 1:7 "For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline."

1 John 4:18 "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

Also, the Bible uses the phrase "Do not fear" or "Do not be afraid" almost 150 times. (http://pastormark.tv/2012/05/09/4-reasons-why-we-fear)

3. Pagan roots

History shows that Halloween started as an ancient Celtic tradition where a bonfire and animal skin costumes warded off roaming ghosts. Sure, Pope Gregory III made a lame attempt to "Christianize" the day, but it clearly didn't stick. There is nothing "Christian" about Halloween today. (Feel free to call me intolerant of other religions.) (http://www.history.com/topics/halloween, http://www.halloweenhistory.org/)

4. Virtue of greed

While adults are greedy for money, children are greedy for candy. (I see a similar problem here in Easter and Christmas, but that's a topic for another day.) Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with giving children candy, but as they age, they start to understand that if they come up with a clever costume, if they visit more houses, etc., they can get more candy. More, more, more, gimme, gimme, gimme. This is obviously sinful and does not in any way foster generosity. (However, my 7th grade boyfriend very sweetly gave me an entire gallon-bag full of his Halloween candy, since I hadn't acquired any myself.)

Proverbs 15:27 "The greedy bring ruin to their households, but the one who hates bribes will live."

Luke 12:15 "Then [Jesus] said to them, 'Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.'"

Sure there are some "harmless" aspects to Halloween. Like I said, giving children candy is not inherently wrong, nor is dressing up your two-year-old as a pumpkin. But I personally am glad that I do not (and never have) celebrate a holiday that is so closely associated with many kinds of evil, and I am happy that my parents prayerfully considered their decision to keep me away from it as a child.

God bless.

Letting Go of Marriage

I have to be honest: marriage is something I've always looked forward to. Literally my whole life. I was roughly preschool-aged when I got my first crush. Even as a little girl (before I had a clue about the birds and the bees), I lied in bed and wondered what it must be like to have someone lying in bed beside me, looking into my eyes as we fell asleep.

In pursuit of my dream of marriage, I have made some rough mistakes:

-I got my first "boyfriend" at age 11 (mostly because my friend pressured me into it. Evidently, she found it preposterous that I had never had one before!)
-I had other boyfriends after that, throughout middle school and into high school. Nothing too long, no relationships that were too close together, but still. Nothing worthwhile either.
-When I finally landed a really great guy, I nagged and pressured him to be perfect. I'm aware that certain wives do this, and I'm blessed to have learned my lesson early on, even though he eventually pushed me away because of it.
-I settled for another "Christian" guy with little passion for Christ and with very little backbone. Meanwhile I selfishly pressured him to do things he wasn't ready for.


This is far from a laundry list of errors. I'd rather not share all my sins with the general public. Not today, anyway.

But there was something I had wrong the whole time: marriage is not the answer, the ending, or the cure.

Marriage is not something for a woman to pursue. Marriage is not going to fix loneliness. Marriage is not found easily. Marriage should not be manipulated (and neither should men). Marriage will not replace my relationship with Christ.

I don't know what messed me up. I don't know what went wrong growing up to make me this way. I've said to friends before, "I don't know, I'm just wired to be boy-crazy!"

I suppose that's what makes me feminine. It's normal for me to be attracted to men! But it's not okay for me to look at every nice, attractive young man I see and search their face for any sign that they like me, any sign that "this one might work." In fact, that's totally selfish. But it's what I do. It's the sin I still face daily.

So anyway, here's what God has been working on me recently:

-Not noticing guys (this one is taking a long time to get the hang of)
-Reading the book "Sacred Singleness" by Leslie Ludy and starting to come to terms with my singleness; even begin to enjoy and thrive in it
-Diving into a more intimate relationship with him. This takes on many forms: I try to go on weekly dates with Jesus, converse with him daily, sing to him. Tonight on a long drive, I played CDs full of love songs and sang along to him.
-Letting go of my dreams of marriage. It's slowly working! Honestly, romance is one of the last things I want in my life right now. The whole idea of "romance" kind of makes me gag. Well, that's an exaggeration, but what I really want in relationships (with Jesus, friends, a husband, etc.) is intimacy, companionship, honesty, service, and quality time. If a man wants to woo me, he's not going to succeed if he offers me "I love you"'s and rose petals and red hearts and kisses and a big shiny rock. No, he's going to have to do it the same way Jesus is doing it, because Jesus' way is working.

I am falling more and more in love with him. It's a battle, because the devil is always pulling me back, but I will keep pushing toward Christ as he pushes toward me until the day when we can finally be united in each others' arms, literally married for eternity. (By the way, did it ever occur to you that our relationship with God is not a metaphor for marriage, but marriage is a metaphor of our relationship with God? That is the real deal. An earthly marriage is only temporary.)

It's a work in progress. You may see more about these heart changes in me later. To see how this all kind of got rolling, please read this excellent post from a few months ago: Femininity. If you read it and are wondering: Yes, I do wear skirts every day now, and I love it! I do think it subtly reminds me of who I am: a beloved woman of Christ.

By the way, a huge thank you to women in my life like my Aunt Amy and Debbie Douglass who show me what it's like to be Godly, content, thriving single women. If I never get married, I would be overjoyed to be like them.


God bless.

How Dreads Saved My Hair

When I first got dreadlocks back in August 2011, someone made the comment that I had destroyed my hair--didn't I know that?!

Of course I knew that my hairs were broken, that if I tried to undo my dreadlocks, I would have an irreparable bird's nest on my head. But why did it matter? My dreads would never come undone. To this day, they are still as tightly knotted as ever, even if not on my head.

But didn't I know that I had to cut them off to get rid of them??

Yes. I mean, not to be rude, but duh. I'm not the kind of person to neglect to think ahead like that. The dreads were meant to be long-term, but not permanent, and even before I got them I intended to someday cut them off. And yes I knew that that would mean my hair would be short.

But dreads did not ruin my hair. They saved it. And, to some small degree, they saved my wallet.

I used to wash and condition my hair every day. If I went more than 24 hours without washing, my air looked greasy and nasty, so I never considered washing it less often until dreads required me to.

Suddenly, I was only washing my hair twice a week. Eventually, it became once a week. My hair had a rough time at first, but it slowly adjusted. My scalp finally started producing much less oil.

Now that my dreads are gone, my hair is quite healthy, and I still only wash it with soap about once a week. I still haven't touched "real" shampoo or conditioner in over two years.

I'm finishing up my dread shampoo now, which takes a while because of how little I need with short hair and how infrequently I use it. When it's gone, I'm switching to a baking soda homemade shampoo with an apple cider vinegar rinse. Obviously baking soda mixed with water and apple cider vinegar mixed with water is much cheaper than "real" shampoo and conditioner.

I am proud of this. I actually brag that I only wash my hair once a week. That's all I need to. I wash it a few times a week with just water (scrubbing/massaging my scalp in the shower), which helps keep it nice between real washings.

My hair produces a very small amount of oil. This is actually really good. No shampoo is stripping my hair and scalp of moisture and nutrients, so my scalp doesn't have to overcompensate by producing masses of oil like it used to. I don't need head-and-shoulders anymore because I don't get dandruff because I don't have a dryness problem, either.

I'm not crazy enough (yet) to use even weirder things to wash my hair like beer, mayonnaise, bananas, or eggs (although I hear they all do wonders).

My hair is thick, shiny, soft, and moisturized. It's super healthy, perhaps healthier than it's ever been. I never would have gotten to this point if getting dreads hadn't forced me to cut down drastically on my shampoo use.

Not endorsing Dr Pepper or anything, this was just the only recent photo of me where you could see my short hair up-close.

Dreads. Saved. My hair.


God bless.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: A book review

About an hour ago, perhaps, I finished reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Apparently it is also a movie, but I have not seen it and probably will not make a strong effort to, because the book works so well as a book and I don't see how a movie could do it justice at all. People that I've talked to who have read the book and seen the movie actually do say that the movie does not do the book justice, although they say it is still a good movie.

Anyway.

I strongly recommend this book. Even though it will make you sad, or very sad, it will probably actually be worth it. It was for me.

Halfway through, I was reading it in my friend Travis's room when I looked up and told him that he would like the book because of the way it's written and the way it makes you think a lot and the way it uses interesting, unexpected words, which Travis is in the habit of doing. So he told me that he would consider reading it when I finish.

So, even though I left a few notes in the pages for Travis (which I will not describe to you on the off-chance he reads this post), I'm not going to lend it to him right away because, believe it or not, I had to read the book for a class, and we haven't been tested on it yet.

It was for Social/Personality Psychology, which is taught by a professor whom I very much disliked last time I had a class with him, on account of his conceit and because he offended and embarrassed me once. I'm warming up to him a little now though. A little.

I don't know what the book has to do with Social/Personality Psychology. I'm a psychology major. I should be able to pick up on this sort of thing. But I can't think of things like this academically, which is why I want to go into counseling, not research, and why I've never taken a class on the Bible.

Of course the boy in the book has a strong and extremely interesting personality, but how can I describe it? I love the way he thinks, but I have no idea how he thinks.

Anyway, what should I say about the book? What can I say about the book?

It made me think a lot about war. It made me spend a solid 45 minutes watching 9/11/2001 TV coverage on youtube, and many more minutes replaying that coverage in my mind, as well as thinking back to my experiences that day and how clueless I was to the significance of it. I was nine years old. The main character in the book was seven.

It made me think about safety and how much of an illusion it is. How any moment, a terrorist attack could become a reality for me, or a shooting, or a car accident, or some bizarre freak thing like me or someone I love falling out of bed and breaking my/their neck.

It made me think about safety and how much of a reality it is for me. How death could happen at any moment, and when that moment comes, I will, without question, become more alive than ever before. How I am absolutely assured of eternal life in paradise, no matter what happens to me here on this alien planet. Most of the people in the book, including the main character, do not believe in God, but the book still caused me to think about these things.

I certainly don't look forward to dying, but I certainly look forward to death because of what it means for me. Don't worry, I'll wait, of course.

The book made me think about children and how fragile they are. It made me think about the importance of friendship and family.

The book made me think about language: the way people talk, the words they use, and how people convey meaning.

I suppose the book made me think about love, but not in a way that I've never thought about love before. I think the book was about love in many ways, but isn't that normal? Isn't life about love in many ways?

The book made me think of more things, but those were the big things, and I've just about had enough metacognition for one night.

I highly recommend this book. I hope that it does not make you too sad. It's a fine piece of literature, and even, sometimes, fun to read. I couldn't put it down. The ending was not sad.


God bless.