Not Crazy About Halloween

Let me preface this post on Halloween by listing the things I like about this time of year.  I love (not just like) the Fall.  I love the crisper temperatures (yet not too cold), and the changing of the colors.  I love NFL football and the baseball postseason.  I love bonfires, chili cook-offs, and hot apple cider.  I like pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and hay rides.  Fall is my favorite season of the year.  I was born in October, got married in October, and grew up playing soccer every Fall.

I, however, am not crazy about Halloween.  For most of my life I've been pretty indifferent about this holiday...I could take it or leave it.  Yet, I am now finding myself more and more in the "dislike" category.  I'm not against it all.  I like the idea of kids getting dressed up in fun costumes, walking around their neighborhood and receiving candy from friendly neighbors (especially as a dad of two young boys whose weakness is candy).  In many ways Halloween brings neighbors and communities together, which is increasingly rare and good in our culture today.

Yet, this year especially I have been aware of the subversive impact that this holiday has on us, and its not all positive.  Lately we've been having problems with out four-year old Noah at bedtime.  Each and every night he would say that he is scared to go to bed, would speak of monsters in his room, and wake up in the wee hours of the morning screaming.  Some may be reading this and think: that's pretty normal stuff...kids afraid of the dark, believing in monsters and screaming in the dark.  Giving it further thought this all began around the same time everyone was getting into the Halloween spirit.  The cartoons had halloween themes, the stores had scary jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, bats, and witches displayed.  While we've been desensitized to these harmless decorations and activities the truth is for many they accomplish the scary response that ghosts, bats, and witches are meant to.  Perhaps our harmless Halloween stuff really isn't so harmless after all.

My wife brought up a great point in all of this.  She said, "maybe it is normal that 4 year olds are scared of the dark, monsters, noises, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, etc...but they shouldn't have to be scared."  Noah should not have to be afraid at night.

Halloween at is most basic level is a celebration of fear.  It has evolved from rituals for remembering the saints of the past to a cartoonish celebration of fear, evil and death.  Maybe you think I'm a bit extreme here but "haunted" houses, "horror" movies, "scary" costumes all in some way accomplish this.  In a culture that is already permeated by fear why do we feel the need to contribute?  People are afraid of everything today from germs to terrorists, why do we need to create and celebrate more fear?

We've done our best to fight a culture of fear in our house.  We have tried to teach and model for our boys that, as the Bible teaches, we have not been given a spirit of fear, but of love and a sound mind.  We have reminded Noah every night that monsters are not real and that he does not need to be afraid.  When we ask him why he doesn't need to be afraid he responds, "because Jesus is real."

So here's a suggestion: lets keep dressing up the kids and having some good fun with our neighbors.  let's keep picking pumpkins, going on hayrides, having bonfires, and drinking our cider.  Let's keep watching our football and enjoying the majestic colors of the leaves.  But let's stop scaring each other, especially the kids.  Let's celebrate love, beauty, and goodwill.  Let's remember that perfect love casts out fear and that ghosts, witches, germs and terrorists have no power over us.  Let's remember and celebrate that, as Noah said, "Jesus is real," and that in his great love he has rescued us from all that causes the fear within us!

Poke the Box, Moneyball and Jesus

I recently read a book titled "Poke the Box" by Seth Godin, who is s quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.  This installment from Godin was all about "starting," which seems like a rather simple subject for a book and yet it is precisely because so many people have difficulty with making the transition from an idea to actually doing something with the idea that such a book is needed.  In "Poke the Box"  Godin challenges us to take initiative, to actually start something, to "ship" it to the market.  He uses the example of a buzzer box that his uncle (a PhD from MIT) once made for his cousin...

"It was a heavy metal contraption, with a thick black cord that plugged into the wall.  it looked like something from a nuclear power plant, not a kid's toy, but that didn't dissuade him from tossing it into the crib.  The box had two switches, some lights and a few other controls on it.  Flip one switch and a light goes on.  Flip both switches and a buzzer sounds.  All terrifying, of course, unless you are a kid.  A kid sees the buzzer box and starts poking it.  If I do this, that happens...Life is a buzzer box.  Poke it. " (hence the title)

I also recently saw a film and have subsequently been reading the book off which it is based called "Moneyball." Moneyball is the story of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, and how he used unconventional approaches to building a winning team with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball.  While many GM's and scouts were building teams the old-fashioned way by using the eye-test and seeing if players had the right "tools," Billy applied sabermetrics and built a team by paying close attention to often ignored statistics.  In many ways it seems like a boring plot for a book and certainly a movie (though it never did to me because I am a sports junkie), but the larger story is that Beane and others like him changed the game of baseball by doing something that few others were doing.  Beane refused to simply adhere to the status quo.  Its a classic example of "poking the box."

This is summed up well in one of Beane's five simple rules for running his team..."No matter how successful you are change is always good.  There can never be a status quo."

These two books got me thinking about something...Jesus was a box poker.  He arrived on the scene destined to do something never done in human history.  He came not just with ideas, but to start a movement.  He chose the guys no one expected to join him, he challenged the religious people of the day, and continued to carry out his mission even in the midst of the worst adversity.  Remember the Sermon on the Mount when several times Jesus said, "You've heard it said...but I say to you."  Jesus poked the box, he challenged the status quo and it resulted in the Church, carriers of God's good news that he is making all things new.  And one day Jesus will usher in a new heaven and a new earth, and put an end to status quo once and for all.

The question I'm left pondering is...why then do so many of Jesus followers simply play it safe?  Why do we seem content with the status quo?  Why do we simply use conventional wisdom when it comes to spreading the good news?  Why do we allow authors and baseball executives beat us at the game Jesus invented?  What box do you need to poke?  What status quo needs to be challenged?  What are the ideas sitting in your head just waiting to be shipped?  Maybe its planting a church, launching a new not-for profit, a career change, starting a business.  Poke the box.  Start something.  Change the game.

What's the worst that will happen?  You will fail?

In a way of response to this fear I leave you with one more quote from Godin...

"Failure is an event, and though with rare exceptions, is not fatal.  The process of starting, regularly, and of seeking out opportunities to do it more often, is never a failure."