Jason Moran
Monday, October 30, 2006
Mi Casa
I haven't really put pictures up showing the "progress" we have made at our house. As far as the yard goes I think it was way too much work...especially now that it might end up dying off. It looks like Jason has a "yellow thumb". Anyway, here are the pictures:
In the picture above you can see the backyard when it looked like it was coming in well.
In the picture below you can see some of the atomic fireball sized hail that bombarded our house all day Saturday.
In this last picture you can see how the grass is yellowing...and we have never had to mow it... ¶ 6:42 PM 12 Comments
In the picture above you can see the backyard when it looked like it was coming in well.
In the picture below you can see some of the atomic fireball sized hail that bombarded our house all day Saturday.
In this last picture you can see how the grass is yellowing...and we have never had to mow it... ¶ 6:42 PM 12 Comments
Monday, October 16, 2006
All Hallow's Eve - The Tough Decision
My wife and I have been asking each other a really difficult question for the past few weeks. I don't think we started the decision making process a bit too early...because we are still pretty far from reaching a decisive decision. The question does not seem to be a difficult one, but when I look at it I almost break out into a cold sweat.
Should we pass out candy on Halloween?
After all, every good Christian knows that it's an evil holiday (remember, holiday is "holy-day". Also remember, holy means "specially recognized, sacred, hallowed, consecrated... and my pastor has said it basically means set apart").
Halloween originated as a pagan celebration that the Celts (pronounced Kelts for the uninformed) brought to us. It is the night before All Saints Day (or, All Hallowed's Day, making Halloween "All Hallows Eve"). Some also call it Pooky Night after púca, a mischievous spirit. Anyway, according to wikipedia, Halloween started out as Samhain, "End of Summer," a pastoral and agricultural festival of fire, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would be lit to ward off evil spirits.
I don't want to support a pagan holiday that is basically an afront to the religious holiday All Saints Day. The thought is: Well, if we're gonna remember the great religious folks on that day....then the day before we'll remember the bad folks. The dead are coming back to our world, so we need a celebration to ward them off.
The rationalization (which I'm very good at) is that the meaning has mostly been lost and now it's just a fun fall time to give candy to kids and to let older girls dress really slutty for one day of the year.
That, however, might not be a good enough rationalization. I know we'd be letting the kids down by either not letting them participate if they were our own kids or not passing out candy to the other children on that day. However, is that very thought and action/non-action part of what is letting this holiday continue? For example, what if I make up a percentage of Americans that are 'christian' that used to either hand out candy or let their own kids go out every Halloween. Say that percentage is 25% of Americans. Now what if they all just STOPPED one year? What if that tradition continued for a few years? Can Halloween be stopped?
The fun part of this argument is to take the pagan-ness of Halloween and how "evil" it is then take a look at Christmas, Easter, and a few other Holydays. I think I'll wait for another post to start explaining how Constantine has given us such confusing holiday celebrations. We are all a bit more pagan than many believe us to be... ¶ 8:41 AM 24 Comments
Should we pass out candy on Halloween?
After all, every good Christian knows that it's an evil holiday (remember, holiday is "holy-day". Also remember, holy means "specially recognized, sacred, hallowed, consecrated... and my pastor has said it basically means set apart").
Halloween originated as a pagan celebration that the Celts (pronounced Kelts for the uninformed) brought to us. It is the night before All Saints Day (or, All Hallowed's Day, making Halloween "All Hallows Eve"). Some also call it Pooky Night after púca, a mischievous spirit. Anyway, according to wikipedia, Halloween started out as Samhain, "End of Summer," a pastoral and agricultural festival of fire, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would be lit to ward off evil spirits.
I don't want to support a pagan holiday that is basically an afront to the religious holiday All Saints Day. The thought is: Well, if we're gonna remember the great religious folks on that day....then the day before we'll remember the bad folks. The dead are coming back to our world, so we need a celebration to ward them off.
The rationalization (which I'm very good at) is that the meaning has mostly been lost and now it's just a fun fall time to give candy to kids and to let older girls dress really slutty for one day of the year.
That, however, might not be a good enough rationalization. I know we'd be letting the kids down by either not letting them participate if they were our own kids or not passing out candy to the other children on that day. However, is that very thought and action/non-action part of what is letting this holiday continue? For example, what if I make up a percentage of Americans that are 'christian' that used to either hand out candy or let their own kids go out every Halloween. Say that percentage is 25% of Americans. Now what if they all just STOPPED one year? What if that tradition continued for a few years? Can Halloween be stopped?
The fun part of this argument is to take the pagan-ness of Halloween and how "evil" it is then take a look at Christmas, Easter, and a few other Holydays. I think I'll wait for another post to start explaining how Constantine has given us such confusing holiday celebrations. We are all a bit more pagan than many believe us to be... ¶ 8:41 AM 24 Comments