Halloween: Is It Just For One Day?

I won’t deny it. I thoroughly enjoy Halloween. I always did as a kid and my favorite outfit was to go out as a ninja. Then, I got the joy when I got older of seeing the kids and I think giving the kids who visited our house candy was more enjoyable than going out and getting it myself. (And now in my own place, my roommate and I have had no visitors and I happened to pick up these Reeses’s Cups and I love peanut butter so much coincidentally and well, now what are we going to do with all those Reeses’s Cups? Decisions, decisions….)

Today, I still dress up some. For me today, it involved wearing my Smallville T-Shirt and my Superman hat due to my love of Clark Kent in the series. Pretending is such a great joy at times and I think too many people kill their imagination when they get older and find it harder to enjoy wonder in the world. Yes. There is a great joy in pretending to be someone you are not.

Wait. Did I just describe what kids do one day a year or what Christians tend to do everyday and especially at church?

This is the kind of idea I wrote about once before from a Casting Crowns song about a Stained-Glass Masquerade. Somehow, we are mostly perfectionists in the church. We think that we have to be perfect and I think that in part comes from a pop Christian worldview. Everyone wants to be seen as holy and righteous and that involves always being in a certain attitude.

Christianity is not about having a certain attitude though. Christianity is about being in a right relationship to God through Jesus Christ and it doesn’t matter how you feel about it or not. Let me say this to people who may be doubting their salvation as an example. Whether or not you feel saved has zip to do with whether you are saved or not.

When was the last time you really heard someone talk about a sin they were struggling with at church? Probably the same as the last time I recall. How many of you all can immediately think though of a sin that you are struggling with? That’s what I thought. I find that so incredible about the internet. I’ll have people come to me who are struggling with problems for help, and I doubt they’ll tell anyone in their church about them. I’m of the same nature though. I’ll tell others problems that I would never dare tell the church and some of those include my internet family.

It seems we’re all watching ourselves and trying to make sure we don’t have a flaw. Why? None of us are perfect. We all know that. Somehow though, we want everyone else to know otherwise. Are we interested in truth then or are we simply interested in a perception whether it is true or not? I think that’s a question we all need to answer.

I’m also one that’s just as guilty. Why is that? I don’t know either. For me, I don’t naturally trust people and this situation makes it all the more difficult. What’s to be done? I’m not sure. We’re all going to need to reach out. Maybe if we showed our wounds a little bit more, we could get them healed and maybe it will start with those in leadership in the church being the first to reveal their weaknesses and struggles. I hoped to do this some with my post I wrote on Obama, socialism, and my story. It was a hard post, but I thought it would help and I hope it did.

Are we going to make this Halloween constant because we can all agree, it’s no treat and we’re certainly playing a trick.

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