A new “happening” among some great bloggers is a synchroblog, where each are focusing on a single theme and linking to one another. I don’t know how it all got started or if I am supposed to highjack it, but since it is about Halloween and because I had this post hit me square in the head last night as I drove my six-year old to basketball, I thought I would do it. I’ve also been impressed with much that has been written, and my post was Halloweenish, but different than the slant of many of the writers. I hope all you organized synchrobloggers don’t mind. Here is what one synchroblogger (a personal favorite, Alan Knox) writes about the phenomenon:
——————————————————-
“The October 24th SynchroBlog includes 26 people [NOW 27 WITH MY HIGHJACKING] sharing their thoughts, their experiences, and their expertise on the subject of “A Christian Response to Halloween” (or at least something remotely connected to that idea.) Perhaps not all the writers are Christian, and that is actually even cooler. Please check out these offerings of love, and gore…uh, I mean lore.”
Now, for my post.
——————————————————-
I was driving thinking about how poorly I had eaten that day, particularly after I had taken my 3-year old daughter to Cici’s pizza – burp. On September 2 we returned to the US after having spent just over five months on mission in England and the Philippines. When I returned, even though I had not been exercising regularly, I was 195 pounds of rice-fed contentedness. On my 6’3″ frame that is a very healthy weight. In the seven weeks or so since we’ve been home I’ve managed to get up close to 210 of fat- and salt-fed excess, and that is with exercising about 3 times a week. That’s ridiculous.
And then God spoke.
Bryan, it’s like you are one huge stomach sometimes. You reduce the entire universe to the worship of your belly. Instead of finding your comfort in me, you look to that “full” feeling or the ever comforting chocolate chip cookie.
Gulp. I guess that means I shouldn’t have had that last piece of pepperoni and jalapeno pizza AFTER the last piece of dessert pizza AND the cinnamon roll.
Then, it got worse. He said:
Sometimes you are just one big penis. Sometimes you are just one big eye. Sometimes you are just one big brain.
Do you see why this is a Halloween post? The mental imagery was horrifying. And the conviction cut me more deeply than Freddy Krueger’s fingernails. I was, as they say, aghast.
Oh, Lord, please forgive me. Please help me. I don’t want to worship myself, or, worse yet, one ugly, over-inflated part of this body You created and gave me. Help me! Help me to love You more! May my understanding of You grow so that I never again desire to worship anything but You. Thank you for your grace, yet again.
Do you ever reduce all that is worthy of praise and glory to something insignificant? That is what we should be afraid of – not whether we are sinning because our child dresses up for a fun evening of candy collection. Satan is really good at what he does. He gets us all distracted thinking we have to battle something as silly as Halloween when we really need to be in the battle every day, desperately clinging to God’s grace and offering ourselves as living sacrifices for the only One worthy of our worship.
As you ponder Halloween this season, check out the many great posts below!
- Phil Wyman – The Christians and the Pagans meet for Samhain
- Lainie Petersen – Trappings of a world in which we do not believe
- John Morehead – Rethinking Evangelical postures on Halloween
- Sonja Andrews – Vampire protection
- Adam Gonneman – What’s so bad about Halloween?
- Reba Baskett – Halloween….why all the madness?
- Steve Hayes – Who stole Halloween?
- KW Leslie – The Christian Harvest Festival
- John Smulo – Hallmark Halloween
- Erin Word – H-A-double-L-O-double-U-double-E-N
- Mike Bursell – Hallowe’en
- Sam Norton – Do not be afraid
- Steve Hollinghurst – Removing Christendom from Halloween
- David Fisher – Vampires or leeches
- Sally Coleman – Encountering hallow-tide creatively
- Kay – Halloween: four perspectives
- Johnny Beloved – Apples and razorblades
- Alan Knox – Fall Festivals and scary masks
- Dan Allen – Why Christians don’t like zombies
- Paul Walker – Peering through the
negatives of mission
- Sea Raven – The Season of Samhain
- Lew A – Halloween: My experiences
- Timothy Victor – Appropriating Halloween and creating liminal times
- Nic Paton – Making space for Halloween
- Barb – The heart of a child
- Bryan Riley – Bloated body parts
Follow-ups and spin-offs
While not actually part of the October Synchroblogs, the following are posts
that either linked to it, or followed up on the general theme. Notes and
comments by Steve Hayes.
- Metapagan – Those Christians again! — a Neopagan response to the Halloween synchroblog
- Metapagan – Pagans talk about Samhain — a roundup of Pagan blog postings about Samhain
- Steve Hayes – Halloween – learning from Synchroblog — what one participant learnt from the Halloween synchroblog
- Dana Bailey What to do about Halloween — another Christian response.
- John Morehead – Imaginarium, Cornerstone and Days of the Dead — Halloween is sometimes linked with All Souls Day, which is two days later. John Morehead examines parallels with the Mexican Day of the Dead.
- Steve Hayes – Days of the Dead and Halloween — Steve Hayes looks at the idea of a day of the dead.
- Cornerstone – Imaginarium — Days of the Dead