Category: Kingdom Culture

I have to admit, I’m probably like most other American Christians. I recognize Halloween is the celebration of death, fear and the occult, but  we still give out candy to the kids who come by. We don’t hand out Bible verses or preach to them. We just play along and are glad when it’s over.

But I got to thinking. I wonder if witches and others who are into the occult (notice I didn’t say “who dabble in the occult”–I don’t know what it is about the occult that prompts dabbling, and I’m not even sure what dabbling is) are upset that Halloween has become so commercialized.

As I mentioned in the post yesterday, Halloween is the second biggest holiday in the United States in terms of money spent.  Just two years ago, Americans spent $5.1 billion on Halloween, more than Easter, Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving.

So, I wonder, do the witches and occultists long for the days when people celebrated Halloween for what it really is: the glorification of death, fear and the occult?

Do they complain that pumpkin farmers and companies like Hallmark have taken the true spirit out of the holiday? I wonder if they talk about the good old days when people didn’t even bother with giving homeowners the option of “trick or treat” but went straight to the vandalism and property damage.

Or maybe they boycott Halloween completely and instead hold all night vigils with their covens where they break out their Ouiji boards and Dungeons and Dragons, while listening to the backmasking on Stairway to Heaven.

I don’t know, I’m just guessing, but it seems plausible. GS

It all started about a year and a half ago, when I began to notice  some of the people I knew and really respected had iPhones. Their love of Apple irritated me a bit at first. They seemed almost arrogant, like they thought they were better than me; later I realized they didn’t think they were better than me because I had PCs, they just really loved Apple.  I also noticed they shared an affinity with other Apple-lovers that seemed based on a knowledge, like they all knew something PC people didn’t know that drew them together.

When it came time to buy a new phone, I debated between a Blackberry and an iPhone. The Blackberry seemed safe; the iPhone a risk. I wasn’t sure I was ready to depart from the security of being like most of my lawyer friends with their Blackberry’s and PCs. How could they all be wrong? Finally I decided, “What the heck?” I took the leap.

Almost immediately I knew I’d made the right decision. I never knew a simple piece of technology could meet so many different needs in my life, and I wondered how I could have been so stupid to wait this long to make this decision.  I also began noticing more Apple people. I wondered how I never noticed them before. I began to notice every iPhone, Macbook Pro and iMac, like they had suddenly appeared in people’s hands, laps and on their desks.

It wasn’t long before I began to tell others about the iPhone. I told them how it had changed my life, how it had made me more organized, productive and creative. I told them they needed to get an iPhone. I had to avoid the tendency of thinking them stupid and close-minded for continuing to use an obviously inferior phone, but it helped when I remembered that not long ago I was like them.

When the iPad came out, I bought one, the 64 Gig model with 3G capability. When it came time to buy a new laptop for my wife I bought her a Macbook Pro.  A few months later I bought one for myself.

I held on to our two old PC laptops, thinking I might need them in the future if I needed to run software that was PC based. And I still had my new laptop PC on my desk in my study functioning almost like a desktop computer, but as the time passed, I found I didn’t even want to use it.

Then, in church last Sunday, I had an epiphany. My brother and his family were in town and my niece and nephew needed laptops for school. It occurred to me I could give them my two PC laptops and buy an iMac for the desk in my study. My wife and I could then network our Macbook Pros with the iMac and be completely Macified at home. After church, I purchased the iMac and I’m writing this post on it right now.

I still have to go in to work every day and use PCs, but I think my love of Apple is strong enough now that I won’t be persuaded to ever switch back. GS

Ok, this blog post doesn’t have that much to do with the kingdom of God per se, but I was watching the U.S. Open yesterday and got to thinking about Tiger Woods.

Like many of you, I watched Tiger’s come-to-Buddha press conference a few months ago.  He admitted he had behaved badly and said he wanted to get back to Buddhist teachings he’d been raised on, something or other about self-control.   The next day, some journalist asked the Dalai Lama if he had any advice for Tiger Woods.  Mr. Lama said he had never heard of Tiger Woods.

Here’s my advice for Tiger:  Don’t take advice from anyone who’s never heard of Tiger Woods. I mean seriously, would you take advice on how to live in a world of temptation from someone who’s never heard of the most famous person in the world?

Here’s the other problem I have with Tiger taking Mr. Lama’s advice: Can we trust him?  Mr. Lama that is.  Didn’t Carl Spackler in Caddyshack say that he had caddied for Mr. Lama in the Himalayas?  He even described what Mr. Lama looked like  (“the flowing robes, the grace…striking”) and mentioned that he was a bad tipper.  I believe Carl Spackler, which makes Mr. Lama’s denial even more incredulous.

I would suggest that instead of Buddha or the Dalai Lama Tiger take advice from Jesus, who was “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15).  And, lastly, Tiger should stop going to IHOP without his wife.  GS