Happy Halloween!
I don’t understand it when people – ok, Christians – start freaking out about the “origins” of holidays. If you want to be picky you can probably find pagan roots in all of our holidays, including the favored Christmas and Easter. Does this fact really have any bearing on our celebrating them today? If it does, then you might want to stop buying Christmas trees and Easter baskets. The truth is that legalism is alive and well within church communities and Halloween has become a holier-than -thou excuse to condemn non-Christians for “yet another thing they do wrong, that we do right.” My theory is that your intention is more important than the fact that hundreds, or thousands of years ago groups may or may not have had pagan celebrations on a particular day.
That at least was my experience growing up. Adults feared God’s wrath and made sure to pretend we weren’t celebrating Halloween by re-naming it a “harvest celebration” – c’mon now… kids in suburbia could care less about the change of seasons, it is the costumes and candy that they’re excited about.
I will step off my very small pedestal and go purchase the costume I’ll be wearing this evening.
Hope you all have fun collecting, or giving away candy!
- (1) my brother Jonathan – he works with troubled children, but has always wanted to be a writer & had his first big break writing dialogues for a new children’s tv show called Fuzzy Fables
- (2) my friend Chrystal – she was my roomie in our tiny one-room dorm in Jordan.. she is now a kindergarden teacher in Atlanta, and although she used to blog, she temporarily stopped but is now back
update: as predicted, I scored my way into the mediocre hall of fame with a 550 on verbal, and 560 on quantitative. My redemption may come in the form of the analytical writing section which I won’t get the grade on for a couple of weeks.
1) Esther’s needs are ignored by her partner, Jack, despite her efforts to “educate” him.
2) Esther needs a bus.
3) “But Esther needs it to all fit together,” says Bojestig. “It needs to flow like an organized process.”
4) Uhm Esther needs to watch out that she does NOT fall into hypocrisy.
5) Maybe the sketch is the only whiff of homeyness Esther needs. Like all stars, Esther has an immensely personal support crew.
6) All Esther needs now is a mullet and some legwarmers.
7) Partnership is essential: Moses needs Aaron, Esther needs Mordecai.
8) Teresa doesn’t think that Esther needs stronger sleeping pills; she thinks she needs to see a psychiatrist.
9) Esther needs to experience for herself life’s turbulent emotions.
10) A modern Esther needs preparation to fulfill her destiny.
A Lesson Worth Learning
Today after Arabic class I tried to engage a girl in a political discussion that ended quickly after noticing her eyes started to give that
“I’m not hearing a word you’re saying” look. As I strolled across campus towards my next class, I looked for leaves not covered with moisture to crush down on as I walked.Her lack of interest in a topic I feel so concerned about made me feel a lot like the crispy leaves I was crunching – a little bit torn. I have felt an internal growing dissatisfaction in the past few days. Sometimes I look around and the world feels so foreign – and I wonder, “Has it always been this way – and I just never noticed?”
It frustrates me how easily I become wrapped up in Esther and forget what’s important.
I-don’t-want-to-be-a-consumer. I feel bombarded everywhere I go to buy, buy, buy.. and I despise that I fall for it. I am sickened by the materialism in our culture.
One of the things I loved about the Middle East is that I was always being reminded of how blessed I am. I used to actually have to plot out how much extra change I was going to carry to class because everyday I passed two beggars – one, a woman who carried her infant child and sat in the tunnel, and two, a seven year old boy who stood in front of the university instead of attending primary school.
Maybe that’s what we need though, the in-your-face reality that the class-system of our world offers a bleak future for most people in it. What we don’t need are more cars, or shirts, or gadgets… I swear, they only cloud our thinking.
I want to get better at loving people with no strings attached. To see them as worthy of my money, and time and energy simply because they are alive.
After walking around for a bit I realized that I hadn’t been crushed because of my classmate’s lack of interest in politics, but her lack of interest in me.
Yet, how many times have I done the same – nodding without hearing the person… just being polite enough to wait til they finished rambling on to quickly exit the conversation?
I think we all deserve more than we give one another.
Seeing my Dad die has made me accutely aware of my mortality. My life will pass just like a vapor. And all the stuff I accumulate will be rummaged through to be sold or given away.
The only thing that lasts are the investments we make into each other’s lives.
[p.s. thank you for the flowers - they are lovely not only because they are lillies, but because they're representative of the investment you're making in my life]
